When the No. 1-ranked OUAZ women’s beach volleyball team lost a pair of pool play matches in the NAIA National Invitation Tournament in Greenville, Tennessee, some of its players had some doubt it could pull off a championship.
“Playing against teams that we didn’t know and losing both of those, I was like, all right, ‘This is not a great start because we’re going to see a bunch of other teams that we’ve never seen before,’” middle blocker Summer Hanks said. “That lit a fire under my butt. I was so fired up. I was I was like, ‘I’m never gonna play better than I will tomorrow.’ And it all worked out.”
It worked out so well, in fact, the Spirit went all the way, winning the school’s first-ever NAIA national championship in any sport in only its sixth year of competition. OUAZ beat second-ranked Corban University (Oregon) 3-0 to clinch the title on April 26.
