Two Green Wave Pairs to Compete in Beach Volleyball National Championship
The Tulane University beach volleyball program will be well represented this weekend in the 2025 AVCA Pairs National Championship in Huntsville, AL, as two sets of Wave pairs will hit the sand to compete for a title. Tulane’s representatives are Katie Hansen and Emma Morris and Skylar Ensign and Molly Trodd.
The three-day tournament runs Friday through Sunday. The event is played to place with pairs continuing to play on in consolation matches even after elimination from title contention.
There are 64 total pairs representing 42 programs in the tournament. Tulane is one of 22 schools to earn the maximum of two bids to the field. The Green Wave earned one bid due to last season’s team performance, and the pair of Hansen and Morris secured the second bid with a runner-up finish two weeks ago in the AVCA Central Qualifiers. Ensign and Trodd placed third in that event.
Hansen and Morris are seeded 28th in the field and will open against a pair from Grand Canyon, seeded 37th, at 9:15 a.m. Friday morning on court nine. The No. 30 seed, Ensign and Trodd will play their opening match on court two at 11:15 a.m. against the No. 35 seeds from Florida Gulf Coast. Day one will feature the opening two rounds of the championship bracket with the last wave of matches beginning at 2:15 p.m.
Beginning Saturday, November 8, select matches will be streamed in two capacities. Six matches from court one will be broadcast on ESPN+, including the championship bracket quarterfinals and semifinals on Saturday along with the third-place match and championship on Sunday. Non-broadcasted matches on courts one and two will be streamed on the AVCA YouTube channel. The full streaming schedule and streaming information can be found on the AVCA website here: https://www.avca.org/news-events/avca-collegiate-beach-national-championships/broadcast-stream/
The entire Wave squad will be back in action to conclude the fall slate at home on Saturday, November 22, by hosting the Tulane Pairs Tournament. The event takes place at White Sands Volleyball Courts in New Orleans.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.