Beach Volleyball Travels to the Big Easy

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Southern Miss, fresh off their first win of the season, makes a trip to the Crescent City for four matches at the Tulane Classic.

"We are looking forward to another great weekend of competition against some good teams," said head coach Shawn Taylor.

The Golden Eagles face four opponents over two days in what should be an exciting weekend of beach volleyball. Action starts on Friday, March 11 against Houston Baptist at 10:45 A.M. and will be immediately followed by a rematch against C-USA foe UAB at 1 P.M. On Saturday, March 12, duals continue against New Orleans and Nicholls at 10:45 A.M. and 3 P.M., respectively.

This weekend's tournament will be the first of the season where the Golden Eagles do not face a ranked opponent. Southern Miss' opponents enter with a combined record of 15-16 with a head-to-head record of 7-5 against the Black & Gold.

Last Time Out
Last weekend, the Golden Eagles, 1-8 (0-2), posted a 1-4 (0-1) record at LSU's Tiger Beach Challenge. Southern Miss faced UAB, Tulane, No. 6 LSU, Texas A&M – Corpus Christi and Texas A&M – Kingsville.

The Black & Gold opened the weekend 0-3 after losses to UAB, Tulane and LSU. The losses against UAB and Tulane both came in 2-3 decisions while the LSU loss was a 0-5 shutout. However, the Golden Eagles were well-positioned to take both the UAB and Tulane matches outright.

Against the Blazers, the fourth and fifth pairs fell in three sets to seal the match for UAB. In a similar vein, the 2-3 loss to Tulane saw Southern Miss' No. 1 pairing of Breleigh Favre and Kellie Garraway fall 17-15 in a game-deciding third set.

Against LSU, Southern Miss had trouble finding a rhythm and fell in straight sets to the host Tigers, 0-5.

Southern Miss finished the last day of the matches 1-1. The day opened with another 2-3 loss to Texas A&M – Corpus Christi and a 4-1 win over Texas A&M – Kingsville. Against TAMUCC, the Golden Eagles fought hard but came up short in the end of the day. Finally, in the last match of the tournament, Coach Taylor and crew dominated their way to a 4-1 victory over TAMUK.

All but one flight was decided in two sets, the lone three-set matchup being won by Southern Miss' No. 1 pair of Favre/Garraway. The Black & Gold's lone loss was on the fourth court in two sets. The win was the squad's first of the season and the team's performance at the tournament was the best of the young season.

Meet the Matchups
Southern Miss opens play at the Tulane Classic against reigning the Southland Conference champion Houston Baptist Huskies. The dual will be the first between the two programs and first serve is set for 10:45 A.M. The Huskies are led by fourth-year head coach Cameron Sitler and enter the weekend with a 5-2 (2-2) record in 2022. Sitler sits just below a .500 career-winning percentage at HBU but has dominated Southland tournament play in the past two seasons. Sitler and the Huskies have yet to face a ranked opponent this season and have only seen five unique opponents on opposing sand.

In terms of common opponents, the Huskies are 0-1 against Golden Eagle foes after falling 2-3 to Texas A&M – Corpus Christi. The other loss is against New Orleans, which the Golden Eagles face this weekend. HBU also sports a 2-0 record against C-USA with the pair of wins coming against ULM.

Previewing the match-up, Coach Taylor said, "Houston Baptist is a program that started a couple of years before ours that has consistently been a solid team. We are looking forward to testing ourselves and seeing where we stand."

The second match of the day is against an already familiar foe in UAB. Southern Miss recently fell to the Blazers just last week and the squad is looking forward to the rematch.

"We were in a position to pull off the win last weekend, but the points did not fall our way," says Taylor. "We are hoping the additional matches since then and some adjustments during this week's practice will help us get over the hump."

UAB enters this week 4-5 (1-1) after enjoying a 4-1 (1-0) showing last weekend at the Tiger Beach Challenge. Entering last weekend, both the Blazers and Golden Eagles were winless. Led by third-year head coach Terri Del Conte, UAB built off their tournament-opening win against Southern Miss to knock off TAMUCC, TAMUK and Stephen F. Austin.

The Tulane Classic will be the third tournament this season that both the Blazers and Golden Eagles will be a part of and the second where they face one another on the sand. This 2022 rematch is set to start at 1 P.M. Friday.

After the first day of competition, Saturday's action opens against New Orleans and is followed by Nicholls.

"Day two pits us against UNO. They are always a smaller team but super scrappy on the court. They are great at finding ways to hang in rallies and force you to earn your points," said Coach Taylor.

New Orleans enters the weekend sitting at 6-2 (2-1) after a 4-0 sweep last week at Spring Hill's Beach Bash. The Privateers finished 2-2 earlier this season at Houston Baptist's Invitational with losses to ULM and TAMUCC and victories over HBU and Southeastern. New Orleans' hot start to 2022 is led by first-year head coach Amy Blanke. Under Blanke, the Privateers are just two wins shy of meeting last year's win total of eight.

Southern Miss and UNO have faced off six times, splitting the matches. After losing the first three matches, Southern Miss has rattled off three consecutive victories over the Privateers. The Golden Eagles most recently defeated UNO 3-2 on April 23 of last season.

After taking a match off, the Golden Eagles finish the weekend in the Big Easy against Nicholls.

"Nicholls is a team we are not too familiar with so it will be fun to see the challenges they bring and how we are able to respond," said Coach Taylor.

Southern Miss has only faced Nicholls once before in 2019, winning 5-0. The dual against the Colonels will be the first in 1,104 days, or 3 years and eight days. Nicholls, 0-7 (0-1), has struggled since the inception of their program in 2019, winning only one contest in three seasons (Nicholls' 2021 season was canceled).

The Colonels' last and only win came against Eastern Kentucky on March 6, 2020.

Nicholls is led by fourth-year head coach Kallie Noble who has led the program every year of its existence, going 1-32 in two full seasons and the abbreviated 2020 season.

Viewing Options
This weekend's matches will not be streamed on any platforms. This is because Southern Miss will not play host Tulane in any of the four matches. For information, updates and scores, follow Southern Miss beach volleyball on Twitter @SouthernMissBVB, on Instagram @southernmissbvb or on our website, SouthernMiss.com.

Beach Volleyball Travels to the Big Easy

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Players Mentioned

Breleigh Favre

Kellie Garraway

University of Southern Mississippi Athletics