NCAA beach volleyball tourney has local ties

More than a half dozen top college beach volleyball players who trained at a Scottsdale club were participating in this weekend’s NCAA Beach Volleyball championship in Gulf Shores, Alabama

RPM Sand based in Scottsdale trains players from Arizona and neighboring states, including many who starred on high school teams then went on to play for universities.

The club started in 2013, with its first graduating class in 2015, and since then has churned out 71 players committed to D1 schools.

“It’s really fun to be able to say we have helped 70-plus athletes achieve their ultimate goal and to go on and play in college. As a coach, that’s the ultimate goal to help those kids achieve their goals and it’s been fun to be a part of it,” said Ryan Mariano, the club’s director, a former professional on the AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) beach volleyball tour.

The NCAA began conducting beach a beach volleyball tournament in 2016. Only eight schools qualify for the tournament every year and RPM Sand has had multiple players playing in it every year, including nine on teams that this year made the tournament, which began Friday and continues through Sunday.

“It means we are doing the right things. It means we’ve created a culture of family that allows athletes from different walks of life to achieve their goals, create lifetime friendships, and always have a safe place to come to. It is a culture that has been passed down from our earliest athletes to the ones currently in the program. It has grown and evolved but at its core it is still very simple.” he said.

The nine players who trained RPM include women who played Valley high schools.

The players who trained at RPM include: Hailey Harward, USC, who played in high school at Desert Vista High; Claire Coppola (Xavier Prep) and Kelli Greene-Agnew (Sandra Day O’Connor) and Brooke Blutreich (Desert Vista), all of LSU; Macy Gordon at at (Xavier) and Jayelin Lombard of Cal-Poly: Caroline White and Trinity Cavanaugh (both Xavier), TCU; Abby Converse (Xavier), Stanford.

“With only eight teams making it to the tournament, having nine players on those teams is pretty incredible,” Mariano said. “In fact on Friday morning when the first round opens we will have a player in every match. It makes us proud to see them play but also proud of how the ground work they are laying now is showing our current athletes that grasping their dreams is within reach if they continue to trust the process.”

The club has trained six juniors national champions, 40 athletes with top 10 finishes at nationals, three high school All-Americans, two AVCA AllAmericans in college, two AVP professionals, two AVP International Tour tournament winners, two Coaches that coach on the AVP tour and one coach who won the AVP Hermosa Beach Open, he said.

Mariano said the club began with no blueprint and currently trains at a Scottsdale park.

“When we started RPM Sand, there were no true beach clubs in Arizona so there was no blueprint for how to do anything,” Mariano said.

“As we have grown and as the game has grown, we have had to have the willingness to adapt and many other clubs have taken our blueprint in forming their own clubs which is definitely flattering.”

Mariano said the club faces ongoing challenges securing volleyball times at the city park, but continues to make it work.

“We often dream of what life would be like, and how many more kids we could help to chase their dreams if we found some investors who would help us to find our own facility where we weren’t as limited as we have been.” he said.

Early results saw LSU eliminate TCU Friday in an elimination match. Stanford was playing Cal-Poly an another elimination match, and USC was playing Florida State Friday afternoon as the brackets were progressing.

The NCAA tournament will be nationally televised on ESPNU on Friday, ESPN2 on Saturday, and ESPN on Sunday.