Coastal Carolina University’s club beach volleyball team is growing as student interest increases and competition opportunities expand.
CCU club beach volleyball was founded by 2024 alums Morgyn Moxey and Hannah Sparkevicius. Current President Allie Poundstone, Vice President Lance Bernadzikowski and Secretary Destiny Snyder aim to uphold the founders’ purpose for the club: to unite students through athletics.
“They [Moxey and Sparkevicius] definitely gave us a good foundation of bringing a place for everyone to play together,” Snyder said. “But I feel like over time watching the club evolve, Allie does a fantastic job of getting everyone together and making sure that we pick out the right people that have the right attitudes and are high energy, because now our practices are just always absolutely insane in the best way possible.”
Poundstone, now a junior, joined the fall semester of her freshman year and has been with it ever since.
“I had no experience in beach volleyball, but I played indoor volleyball my whole life,” Poundstone said. “A lot of people, a lot of the girls specifically, had played indoor their whole life and then come and just transition into beach.”
Interest in the club quickly increased. Within a year of its founding, CCU club beach volleyball had more students trying out than available facilities.
“So, we started making cuts, and then we also started contacting other schools a little more, trying to get more competitive. And the more other classes and new people come to try out, the more competitive we get because we get new talent coming in,” Bernadzikowski said.
As the club’s competitive schedule grows, they remain open to players of any experience level, centering their club on skill development.
“I’d say it’s mostly people with experience, but this past tryout, we took, I’d say, maybe 10 people who’ve never played before,” Poundstone said. “We try to go through the basics and train them up because we have had a lot of people who came with no experience and ended up being our best players.”
Looking ahead, the executive board plans to keep traveling to tournaments and is considering joining a nearby league to have a more consistent playing schedule, beginning Feb. 14.
