Beach volleyball returns after successful first season

BY DREW FLEMMING

Assiociate Producer

This is beach volleyball’s second season at Tarleton State University. For the last year and a half, the beach volleyball team has been working hard to make themselves a competitor in NCAA Division I. In 2025, the Texans travelled to Kingsville, Texas, to compete in the Javelina Beach Classic and Javelina Beach Showdown to start their season.

While competing at the Javelina Beach Classic, the Texans beat Texas Wesleyan 4-1, Wayland Baptist 5-0 and Mary Hardin-Baylor 4-1. The Texans also fell short to Texas A&M-Kingsville 1-4.

The following weekend, the team traveled back to Kingsville, Texas for the Javelina Beach Showdown. At the showdown, the Texans once again beat Wayland Baptist 5-0. They also fell short to the University of Texas El Paso 1-4, Colorado Mesa 2-3 and Texas A&M-Kingsville 1-4. The Texans have this week off to practice and sharpen their skills on the sand before their next tournament, the Long Beach State University invitational.

Dayna Masters is the head volleyball coach at Tarleton. Masters received her bachelor’s and master’s degree from Tarleton and is excited to be coaching at her alma mater.

“At this point, everyone is our rival because we’re the underdog. Being in a new program, there is a lot to work on. Really just keep our head down and work hard, and have the underdog mentality of, ‘We’re ready to battle anybody, we want to be the team everyone dreads playing,’ because we’re going to challenge them and be at our best,” Masters said.

It’s clear the Texans are determined to be the best they can be and grow as a team, both on and off the court. They have proven their hard work and dedication through their exceptional performances at their tournaments so far and plan to work harder in their future on the sand court.

Grayson Schirpik has been playing volleyball since she was 12 years old. She played indoors for a few years before returning to the sand at Tarleton.

“We are a new program, and it makes it seem like we are the underdogs and we have something to prove. We all have the experience, so going into those matches, it’s not like we have something to prove; it’s like, ‘We can beat them’; it’s a mindset of staying competitive,” Schirpik said.

Although they are a newer program, like many Tarleton sports, they have the roster, talent and coaching to make it to the top of their division.

Allison Bryant started playing college volleyball at Catawba College in North Carolina and also played at Palm Beach State where she and her team won a national championship before coming to play at Tarleton.

“This is a great group to be around; it’s like a family. We work with our partners and watch film to back each other up and prepare for competition,” Bryant said.

Bryant and her partner Emma Halcomb are on a five-game win streak, with the team currently standing at a 4-4 record.

Bryant, Halcomb and the rest of the team will travel to Long Beach, California to compete against Long Beach State, Concordia, California State Bakersfield and Arizona next week. The rest of their season has them compete at the Islander Classic in Corpus Christi, Texas and the New Orleans Classic in New Orleans, Louisiana.