Ēbere and Gelnere win USC's fall season finale in beach volleyball

Santa Monica, California, hosted a fall-season NCAA beach volleyball tournament for college pairs over the weekend. NCAA is the US collegiate sports association. University of Southern California (USC) representatives Līva Ēbere, a Latvian first-year student, and Madison Gelner, an American senior, won all six of their matches and took the tournament title. It was the last weekend of USC's fall season.

USC competed at two events at once. Assistant head coach Kristija Tekaveka led Zoja Hensone/Sāra Vuda and Ešlija Patere/Kalinda Koka to the national championship in Alabama. Koka replaced Kennedy Koukli, who had originally been planned for the event. Most of the squad, led by head coach Dane Blanton, played in Santa Monica, where USC's toughest rivals were the California teams Cal Poly and LBSU.

The road to the title

Ēbere/Gelnere were the top seed. On Saturday they opened by beating an LBSU pair 21:7, 21:19, despite trailing 3:8 early in the second set. They then won two matches against Cal Poly pairs: 21:18, 21:17 and 21:14, 21:11.

On Sunday the duo first beat an LBSU pair 21:13, 21:15, then defeated Cal Poly players 21:15, 19:21, 15:5. In the match for a semifinal spot, they came back from 13:17 to 17:17 in the second set but lost it. In the final, Ēbere and Gelnere beat Americans Jordyn Scribner and Quincy Stevens 21:18, 21:14. The match carried extra meaning: it pitted the most successful players of USC's fall season, Gelnere and Scribner, against the team's best young defenders, Ēbere and Scribner.

What comes next

Ēbere played several roles this fall. In the first tournament, paired with Sāra Vuda, the two alternated: while one served, the other worked in the blocker position. In the second, Ēbere was the nominal defender while Koukli played her usual blocker position. In the third, Ēbere (183 cm) and Gelnere (188 cm) played in the classic format.

The fall season is over, but training will continue this year. After a December break, the team will start preparing in January for the spring season, which begins in the second half of February.

The USC beach volleyball team has won seven US collegiate national titles (2015, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024). Latvian Tīna Graudiņa was also a champion with the team twice (2021 and 2022).