AVCA Beach Volleyball Championship April 17-19 at Gulf Place

AVCA Beach Volleyball Championship April 17-19 at Gulf Place

Bonus NCAA Championship here again May 2-4

A budding mecca for collegiate beach volleyball, the city of Gulf Shores and Alabama’s Beaches Sports & Events will host the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Small College Beach Volleyball Championship April 17-19 and the NCAA Beach Volleyball National Championship May 2-4 at Gulf Shores Public Beach.
The AVCA will bring 650 student-athletes representing 33 schools from around the country to Pleasure Island. The NCAA Championship will feature the top 17 women’s teams in the nation. Admission to the AVAC is free. Tickets for the NCAA Championship are now on sale at eventbrite.com.
“The city has made a name in the beach volleyball community, and it was a great partner when the AVCA held the first collegiate national championships there from 2012-15, just before the NCAA took over,’’ said Dr. Jaime Gordon, AVCA CEO. “We look forward to continuing that partnership and a great event in April.”
The AVCA field includes 18 Division II schools, 9 Division III schools and 6 NAIA schools playing on 20 championship courts and four practice courts at Gulf Place.
“Our journey to become a desirable destination for collegiate beach volleyball started with hosting the AVCA before the sport became NCAA-sanctioned, and for that, we are forever grateful,” said Michelle Russ, Alabama’s Beaches Sports & Events VP.
Huntington Beach was scheduled to host the NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship this year and in 2026, before the event returns to Gulf Shores for a five-year stint starting in 2027.
The change in venue was announced in February to allow that area to focus its resources on supporting those recovering from the wildfire devastation that left parts of Los Angeles reduced to ashes and destroyed or damaged more than 16,000 homes.
The decision to move the championship was a mutual one between the NCAA and the Orange County Sports Commission, which collaborated with host school Long Beach State to make Huntington Beach’s championship host bid.
All-session passes to the NCAA Tourney at any level include complimentary access to the opening match between the no. 16 and 17 seeds on Friday morning. Single day tickets are also now on sale.
The top 17 teams from around the country will cruise to Gulf  Shores to compete in the single-elimination championship. All of the matches will air live on the various ESPN networks, with the championship match airing live on the flagship ESPN at 11 a.m. on Sunday, May 4.
Southern Cal has won the last four championships and six of the eight tourneys since the sport was fully sanctioned as an NCAA sport with Gulf Shoes as the host site in 2016. UCLA won the other two titles.
In April 2012, Pepperdine won the inaugural AVCA Collegiate Sand (not beach) Volleyball National Championship in Gulf Shores.
AVCA powers had gathered for a pseudo-championship tourney in San Diego in August of 2011. But the following spring, during that first championship weekend in Gulf Shores, the sport’s guiding forces saw how the venue, the weather, the sand, the sponsors and multiple hosts could work in sync to create an event that fit perfectly what Gulf Shores was looking for as its springtime answer to October’s National Shrimp Fest.
The weekend was the antithesis of the controversial Hangout Fest, which came two weeks later at the same location and by then had already abandoned its original pitch to the city as a family event. As the story goes, that first national tourney may not have even come to Gulf Shores if Southern Cal president Max Nikias did not nix it on his campus because he did not want trucks dropping loads of sand on Trojan greenspace.