Beach volleyball: Queen’s is where it’s at

Queen’s Beach will be the go-to spot for Hawaii beach volleyball for the foreseeable future.

UH — which began what was then called sand volleyball in 2012 — played its first-ever home dual match at Queen’s, on the edge of Waikiki across from the Honolulu Zoo. Since the opening of the T.C. Ching Athletics Complex sand courts in 2015, the SandBows have split their time at home between their on-campus facility and the actual beach.

The primary upside to Queen’s is it allows UH to lay out five or six courts across so dual matches may be played the way they were intended — simultaneously and adjacently.

The upside of the Ching Complex is proximity and infrastructure for televised matches.

To coach Jeff Hall, it’s no contest.

“It’s still an ordeal to bring all that stuff down there, but it’s the best place to play,” Hall said of Queen’s on Wednesday. “We’re almost done playing up here (on campus). It’s just not what we do for the NCAA, or for the Big West, so why would we practice doing a non-traditional format? We’ll keep it up here for senior night and one other event, because it’s televised, but after this, this might all be at Queen’s and we might even try to get the senior night down there.” He shrugged. “We’ll see.”

As junior Amy Ozee notes below, the two sites have a considerably different feel to them from a player’s perspective.

Here's #HawaiiBVB's Amy Ozee on the difference of playing at the T.C. Ching Complex sand courts at UH vs. Queen's Beach, site of this weekend's 2019-opening tournament. pic.twitter.com/l8dXuZTlXh

— Hawaii Warrior World (@hawaiiwworld) February 23, 2019

Queen’s got the nod for this weekend’s stacked Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Beach Classic — No. 1 UCLA, No. 4 Pepperdine, No. 5 Hawaii, No. 11 Stanford and Saint Mary’s — to open the 2019 season. UH opens against Saint Mary’s at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. “It’s maybe the best weekend of beach volleyball NCAAs and we’re looking forward to it,” Hall said.

The site is no surprise given the way things have trended. Since 2015, UH has played 38 at Queen’s and 26 at the Ching Complex. That’s 59.4 percent at Queen’s. When the Big West championships were held on Oahu in 2018, Queen’s was the pick.

This season, UH has 14 dual matches scheduled at Queen’s and only two at the Ching Complex.

Ideally, UH would have a five-across court setup at the Ching Complex to accommodate all five flights of a dual match. It does have five courts — but three are across the football practice field, making things inconvenient from a logistical standpoint. You either play them all simultaneously and invest time on either one side of the complex or another as a coach or spectator, or play them piecemeal on the two courts mauka of the football field where the TV access is, making for a long afternoon or evening.

“That’s the ultimate (goal). To have five courts here,” Hall said. “And like anything at UH or the state, it takes time. We have to be patient. There’s all kinds of projects underway. I mean, Bob Coolen waited 20 years for a new softball field.” He laughed. “Maybe longer. So, if I have to wait, I have to wait. But if we can win a championship, it might help speed up the process.”

Here’s some shots of the T.C. Ching Complex courts:

And here’s Queen’s:

——————

An interesting aspect of NCAA beach volleyball this year is a beefed up system of coaches protests about opponents’ lineups. What’s there to protest, you ask? Well, if the array of talent of a team’s five flights isn’t in the spirit of ranking your best pairs from the first flight to the fifth, a coach might object. That’s been a problem in the past, Hall said, but he wants to be very selective about pulling out the protest card.

Here’s Hall on it:

“The thing that’s new about beach volleyball this year, we can protest immediately once the lineups are in. We’re not going to, but there’s penalties and kind of some teeth to the rules this year, which is great. You have to submit one hour before you play, and then each coach gets to evaluate the lineup and decide whether you want to protest or not. And then there’s an opportunity to protest afterward as well, which is probably what will happen most this year.

“Basically you see their best player playing at 4. That kind of egregious thing. Or somebody playing at 4 and all of a sudden they’re at 1 the next dual. That’s illegal. Those are easier to catch. But the subjective ones, somebody we think is the best at a low flight, is mostly what will probably happen. And you gotta really kind of see a track record. We won’t start, if there’s anything egregious, until you see five, six duals of a program. Because kids change, develop. And it doesn’t say put your best kids at 1 — it says put your best pair at 1.”