“You guys should have seen the beach,” Taryn Kloth raved.
The soft sands of Queen’s Beach in Honolulu, HI was covered with volleyball aficionados on Sunday afternoon. LSU had rallied to defeat fifth ranked Hawaii 4-1 after dropping matches to UCLA and Hawaii the day before. Now they were fighting to complete the full comeback and defeat the number one ranked team in the country in UCLA. It came down to Ashlyn Rasnick-Pope and Toni Rodriguez’s match on court three, and fans from a plethora of backgrounds packed around the end lines to see if LSU could finish the rally.
“We had fans from everywhere. There were Canadians watching us, there were people from every state. It was so cool,” Kloth described.
UCLA’s final attack landed out of play, and the second ranked Tigers won the Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic to open their 2020 season. After the rough start, LSU had come all the way back to win the tournament.
What sparked the comeback? Coach Russell Brock thinks it was the Tigers’ desire to prove that they did deserve to play with the best, even if their play on Saturday may not have shown it.
“One of the things I said was, ‘For us to not play very well, if it was me, and I was playing, I would be pretty agitated and would want to come back and with something to prove.’ And I think that they took that to heart for sure and came back to put a better foot forward and play with a little more intensity, play with a little more focus,” Brock said.
Kloth and her partner Kelli Agnew were key to the Tigers’ success over the weekend. They won all five individual matches played without losing a set and were awarded National Beach Pair of the Week by the AVCA on Tuesday.
“We just did our jobs,” Agnew said. “Anyone out there, we could beat them at any time. It was just a lot of fun.”
Although Kristen Nuss and Claire Coppola, LSU’s top duo, had a great weekend overall, they did have some obstacles to overcome. Individual match losses to UCLA and then Hawaii on Saturday tested their leadership as the senior veterans on the team.
“Just being on the ones and not being able to pull out a win for our team definitely was a reality check for Kristen and me,” Coppola said. “We have to lead by example. If we can’t get the job done, we shouldn’t have to rely on everyone else. It was a big, eye-opening part of the weekend.”
Now, the team must put their past weekend behind them and refocus for this coming weekend, because top-ranked UCLA is coming to Baton Rouge for the Tiger Beach Challenge. Coppola believes getting to play them in Louisiana will be a huge advantage for the Tigers.
“I’m really excited. Our team plays better when we have energy and we have our other teammates on the sidelines cheering us on, so I think that’ll be huge home-court advantage for us.” Coppola smiled.
The Tigers will face off against the Bruins on Saturday at 5:15 PM but will also have matches against Houston Baptist on Saturday and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Tulane, and Spring Hill on Sunday.
“I think anytime we get to play at home, it’s a blast,” Brock added about the home opener. “Just playing in this facility and playing in front of our fans and family is a lot of fun. To have [UCLA] coming in, as well as some other good teams, even just with the reality of how good we are and what we’re trying to build this season, to be able to play at home earlier in the season than usual, all of those things make it a lot of fun and worth looking forward to for sure.”
The energy buzzing around the team is warm like the sun they have grown so accustomed to playing under. Tiger fans will feel that same energy when they pack the stadium this weekend. Baton Rouge may not have swaying palms, cool island breezes or tropical drinks, but it will possess something this weekend Honolulu can no longer claim: the host of a top-tier beach volleyball match.
