Beach
volleyball’s future US stars were on display at the Shiokaze Park on Monday as Kelly
Claes and Sarah Sponcil made their Olympic debuts. The US beach volleyball
team showed the full strength of the NCAA beach volleyball program.

The NCAA program has only been around since 2012 but 3 out of the 4 players on the court
for the US victory over Latvia came through that program. Claes and Latvia’s
Tina Graudina both went to Southern California, and Sponcil played at rival
UCLA. College beach volleyball was never an option for the previous generation
of the sport.

“I think a lot of athletes in the US, this younger generation is coming up because of the
NCAA, which is super exciting. I am really excited to see just how the sport
grows even more because of that,” Claes said after the three-set victory over
Latvia, the Associated Press reported.

Ever since
beach volleyball came to the Olympic scene, it has mostly seen players who
played indoor volleyball in college and switched to beach volleyball later.

 The hope in the US is that by starting on the
beach earlier, the teams representing the country can get back to dominating
the sport as they did during the time of Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty
May-Treanor when they won three straight Olympic gold medals.

“It is been
really cool to see just the pendulum of beach volleyball around the world how
it has kind of shifted. The US has kind of been at the forefront for so long
with Misty and Kerri. And then I think the rest of the world kind of caught up
and passed us. With the NCAA, there is going to be this huge new generation of
amazing athletes. And I think we are going to make that kind of push back,” the
Associated Press quoted Claes as saying.

Men still
do not have an NCAA program for beach volleyball.