The nation had its eyes on LSU athletics on Monday, Jan. 13^th, as the football team was in New Orleans preparing for the College Football Playoff Championship. Beach Volleyball coach Russell Brock received an email from Dig Magazine. The magazine’s preseason poll listed the LSU Beach Volleyball team as the No. 2 team in nation. The American Volleyball Coaches Association poll ranks LSU as the fourth team in the nation. 
Coach Brock has been the head coach for three seasons and each season has ended with a top-10 finish in the championship tournament. Starting a new season with the highest ranking in program history doesn’t influence the team says Brock.
“In our mind, we’ve still never won a conference championship, we’ve still never won a national championship, so it doesn’t matter how high our ranking is,” said Brock. 
The head coach didn’t mind being overshadowed by the football team when the rankings came out, he just wants the team to focus on staying undefeated in its new arena, and to be able to jump any hurdle the season throws at them. 
“The perception is were the best team we’ve ever had, but our perception is that we’re just not good enough,” said Brock.
The 2019 season ended with two late losses in the double-elimination championship tournament leaving the team with a third-place finish. The team was defeated by the eventual first and second place teams in UCLA and USC. In the four-year history of the NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship, only UCLA and USC have won championships, each team winning two. LSU improved this offseason by signing five freshman and a graduating senior in Jess Schaben, while also bringing back two All-Americans in Claire Coppola and Kristen Nuss. 
It only took one visit for graduate senior Jess Schaben to transfer to LSU and transition into a new sport. At Iowa State, Schaben earned the All-American Honorable Mention award three times while playing indoor volleyball. The transition to the new sport began with a process Jess describes as developing sand legs.
 “It’s really different from indoor, you touch the ball every time,” said Schaben. 
As she adapts to the faster pace of the sport and the elements of the beach, she credits her teammates and coaching staff on guiding her through the changes. The program she says has family dynamic that has made the process of being far from home and in a new sport easier.
Junior Hunter Domanski returns after an impressive sophomore season finishing with a 29-8 record, improving from a 19-20 record her freshman year. After earning an AVCA Top-Flight award with partner Allison Coens last year, for winning 75% of their matches, Domanski says she doesn’t have any personal goals for her Junior year.
“As a team, we just want to win a National Championship, and I just want to do whatever I can to be a part of it,” said Domanski. At the championship tournament last year Domanski finished with a 3-0 record.
The season will begin with a scrimmage on February 15, with a Purple vs. Gold game. Then the team will then fly to Hawaii for matches against Stanford, UCLA and Hawaii. The first home match will be a double header on Feb. 29, against Houston Baptist and another match against the No.1 ranked team in the country, UCLA.