LADY TRITONS TAKE TO THE BEACH FOR SAND VOLLEYBALL ACTION

PRESS RELEASE – The University of Guam’s women’s beach volleyball team won the first tournament in their short program history on Sunday, with a 6-0 record in the Lady Triton Beach Blast Tournament I for the fall of 2023 at the Jimmy Dee’s Sand Courts. The Tritons twice in the spring of 2023, went undefeated in the round robin play of a tournament, but lost in the finals to a team they had beaten in the round robin play, but on Sunday, the Tritons pulled it out and captured their first tournament victory.

The Triton team of Rebecca Salas and new partner, Tasi I. Sgambelluri, defeated the Plumeria team of Jasmine Lee and Alana McKeerer in the finals of the tournament 9-21, 21-18 and 15-8 to capture the first championship for UOG in four tries last academic year and the first tournament of the 2023-24 season. The Sunsets finished 3rd and Au Mana 4th in the five team tournament. L.C. was the 5th team in the tournament.

The Lady Tritons went 4-0 in the round robin part of the tournament, with each team playing the other teams in the tournament to one set of 21. UOG defeated Plumeria to open the tournament, 21-10, followed by wins over Au Mana 21-6, Sunsets 21-18 and L.C. 21-4. Plumeria finished 2nd in the round robin with a 3-1 record followed by Au Mana 2-2, the Sunsets 1-3 and L.C. 0-4.

The tournament then moved to bracket play, as the #4 Seed Sunsets played the #5 Seed L.C. and Sunsets won the single set match 21-17 to eliminate L.C. from the tournament and Sunsets then moved to face the #1 Seed, the Lady Tritons, in the semi-finals and #2 Seed Plumeria faced #3 Seed Au Mana in the other semi-final.

Both the Lady Tritons and Plumeria made short work of their opponents in the semi-finals, as UOG won 21-14 and 21-10 and Plumeria defeated Au Mana 21-13 and 21-7 in two out three set matches.

This sent UOG to play Plumeria in the Championship while Au Mana and Sunsets were in the 3rd Place match.

For 3rd Place, both Au Mana and the Sunsets played a hard in the two out three set match, with the Sunsets coming out on top, 20-22, 21-16 and 15-10. The Sunsets were made up of Anna Lazamana and Niesha Chen.

In the Championship match, it seemed in the first set, that the Lady Tritons may lose in another final again, as Plumeria took an easy 21-9 win to open the first set of the match, but UOG came back in the 2nd set to win a tough 21-18 game and then the Tritons made easy work of Plumeria in the third and final set, 15-8.