A pair of Pepperdine women’s beach volleyball players won bronze at the USA Volleyball’s Collegiate Beach Championships, a week after the Waves beach volleyball squad was runner-up in the NCAA National Beach Volleyball Championships.Â
Brittany Howard and Corrinne Quiggle defeated Delaney Rohan and Chelsea Ross of Georgia State, 21-17, 21-11, in the USAV event’s third place game on May 13 at the Hermosa Beach Pier Volleyball Courts. Howard, a graduate student, and Quiggle, a junior, were one of three Pepperdine duos participating in the event that featured 24 pairs of the best women collegiate beach volleyball players.Â
Senior Delaney Knudsen and sophomore Madalyn Roh competed, as did Anika Wilson, a sophomore, and Deahna Kraft, a freshman. The trio of pairs went undefeated on May 11, the championship’s opening day, with each twosome grabbing two wins.Â
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 The USAV event was won by USC’s Kelly Claes and Sara Hughes, and began five days after USC defeated Pepperdine for the national championship in Gulf Shores, Ala.Â
The Trojans beat the Waves, 3-2, in the championship match. The 27-5 Waves winning sets in the championship were by Quiggle and Howard — 21-18, 16-21, 15-13 — and Wilson and Kraft — 21-14, 21-17.Â
Pepperdine defeated Long Beach State, 3-0, and UCLA, 3-1, in the opening rounds of the championship. The squad then fell to USC 3-0 in the semifinals before defeating Hawaii 3-0 in a contender’s bracket match to get to the championship final.Â
Pepperdine has grabbed the American Volleyball Coaches Association Championship twice, but earlier this month was the first time the Waves had participated in the two-year-old NCAA Championship finals.Â
At the close of the season, Roh and Knudsen were named 2017 AVCA Collegiate Beach Volleyball All-Americans. Pepperdine is the only school to have more than eight AVAC All-Americans. The Waves have 12 different All-Americans and 18 All-American certificates.
