APSU has added a beach volleyball team for the spring of 2017. That’s right, there will be a beach in Tennessee for the start of the 2017 season.
This beach, unfortunately, will be without water.
Taylor Metzer and Brian Netzler, who coach the women’s volleyball team will be under the reign with the same positions.
The acquisition of beach volleyball makes it the sixteenth NCAA varsity sport at APSU.
Carson Newman Univesity and Lincoln Memorial University are among the other schools with women’s beach volleyball in Tennessee.
APSU has the only Division I beach volleyball team. Jacksonville State has joined in on the sand as they also welcome beach volleyball in the Ohio Valley Conference to their campus.
APSU’s first year team will be looking for mainly indoor volleyball players. Eventually, beach and indoor volleyball will have separate players with some crossover potential.
“The orginal intention of building sand courts was to train our indoor team and make them better indoor,” Taylor Metzer said. “Now that were going to have it as a sport, it’s going to increase our indoor program but it’s also going to create more opporunities for our females to play volleyball. It’s going to be a great addition to our campus.” Metzer added.There are four big things you should know that are different between indoor and beach volleyball; court sizes, balls, players on each side and scoring.
Indoor court sizes are 18m x 9m, with an attack line 3 in from the center line. Beach courts are 16m x 8m, with no attack line as they can serve from anywhere on their side of the net.
Indoor balls are made of leather and are heavier as they beach ball is softer and lighter to hit. The lighter weight allows the ball to be in the air more as the heavier balls move quicker and can be hit harder.Indoor volleyball has six players on the court at a time, with specialized positions for the players in a rotation.
Beach volleyball will typically be played with doubles, with no specialized positions, only a right and left side.
Matches will be played in the best of three with 21 points.
