ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The University of New Mexico announced Tuesday the addition of women’s sand volleyball as an intercollegiate sport for the spring of 2015. Lisa Beauchene, an assistant on the court volleyball coaching staff, has been named head coach of the sand team under Jeff Nelson, the director of volleyball.
The addition of sand volleyball now gives New Mexico 22 intercollegiate sports, with 10 men’s sports and 12 women’s sports. Sand volleyball is the first athletics program to be added by the university since women’s soccer began competition in 1993.
“There’s a lot of advantages (to adding sand volleyball),” Nelson said, “but the biggest, I think, is heightening the awareness of our program and volleyball as a whole in our community.
“Sand volleyball provides us better access in recruiting because more and more kids are playing sand volleyball. When you’re recruiting them, they’re asking you if you have a sand program. It provides you the opportunity to be maybe in the mix for more recruits because some kids do want to do both.”
Sand volleyball, tabbed as an emerging sport by the NCAA in 2010, has seen tremendous growth over the last few years. According to the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA), as of June 30, 46 schools have committed to sponsor the sport in 2015.
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In 2012, 15 NCAA programs competed in sand volleyball.
With over 40 programs primed for competition in 2015, the NCAA will begin the process of transitioning sand volleyball to an emerging sport to a championships sport with the end goal of sponsoring an NCAA Championship in the sport.
Currently, the AVCA hosts the Collegiate Sand Volleyball National Championships.
“Sand volleyball is an emerging sport and I think it’s going to become really popular and I think we’re on the front end of that,” New Mexico’s Senior Women’s Administrator Janice Ruggiero said. “… I think it will improve indoor and outdoor just because they’re greeting to practice on two different types of surfaces.”
The Lobos’ inaugural sand volleyball roster will feature five sand-only players along with a number of court players. Programs are required to have at least 10 players on their roster, and student-athletes can participate on both the court and sand teams.
Additionally, New Mexico will compete in a number of regional matches during its first season, including at Arizona and at Arizona State.
The Lobos will also host a pair of events at Stone Face Courts in northeast Albuquerque, with an exhibition in early March and a multi-team event in April.
“I think that sand volleyball as a whole is a great game,” Nelson said. “It’s kind of the whole ‘fun in the sun’ premise that people like.”
That premise is also one of many differences between sand volleyball and its court counterpart.
Beyond just the disparate playing surfaces, sand volleyball is a partner sport played during the spring, while court volleyball is comprised of teams of six players and is competed during the fall.
Additionally, sand volleyball plays the best of three sets to determine a winner in individual matches. The first two sets are played to 21 points, with a tiebreaker set played to 15 points, if necessary.
Court volleyball is best of five sets, with the first four sets played to 25 and the final set played to 15.
However, both sports are rally scoring and a set in both sports must be won by two points.
Dual matches are also unique to sand volleyball, where the winning team is the school that wins three of five individual matches versus its opponent. Similar in format to tennis, each of those individual matches consist of a doubles — a pair of teammates ranked by ability — that are matched against their corresponding doubles from the opposing team.
The officiating is also different between the two types of volleyball.
In sand volleyball, open-handed tipping is prohibited and the block touch counts as one of the three permitted contacts. Additionally, coaches may only speak or give any kind of input to their players during timeouts or between sets.
The players also switch sides of the court more frequently in sand volleyball in order to mitigate the effect of wind and sun. Every seven points during a 21-point set and every five points during a 15-point set the player will switch sides.
New Mexico expects a competition schedule and roster to be finalized in the coming months.