Girls volleyball: Marin’s top players have their sights set on the beach

With eight local teams competing in five North Coast Section semifinals inside the county on Wednesday, most of Marin’s top-end volleyball talent will be on display. While Marin has long been dominant on the indoor courts – at least one team from the county has won a section title every year since 2007 – current […]

With eight local teams competing in five North Coast Section semifinals inside the county on Wednesday, most of Marin’s top-end volleyball talent will be on display.

While Marin has long been dominant on the indoor courts – at least one team from the county has won a section title every year since 2007 – current standouts like Branson School setter Logan Tusher, Branson outside hitter Elena Fisher, and Redwood setter Kaley Matthews are even better on the sand.

“I really like both sports but what gravitated me toward beach is a little bit of more personal responsibility,” Tusher said. “Just having two people on the court, you really feel like you are in control of this game. Not to say that it’s not that way for indoor, but when I wake up on game day (for beach), I feel like what I do in this match is going to decide the outcome so I do like the responsibility of it.”

Instead of six players on the court with subs waiting on the bench, beach volleyball consists of just two players per team so both of them need to be able to do it all.

“I like that part about it – just being able to do everything and you’re not restricted to just passing or just being a focused blocker for indoor,” Fisher said.

Typically one player will take up more of a blocking role at the net while the other takes up a more defensive, back-row position. Tusher and Fisher train together and play together fairly often with Fisher usually taking up the blocking role.

Although still a junior, Tusher has already committed to play beach volleyball at Stanford in two years. Matthews, a senior, has committed to play for two-time national champion UCLA. Fisher, still a sophomore, also has her sights set on playing beach in college.

“That’s the goal,” Fisher said. “I hope I can be able to.”

All three athletes are in the player pool for USA Volleyball National Team Development Program for beach – part of a select group of about 40 from the West region.

“Two on the same (high school) team is pretty rare,” Branson coach Michelle Brazil said. “One is rare. Two is very rare.”

Tusher and Fisher have been involved with the program since last Fall and attended a training camp last month. Another training camp is set to take place in late December.

“We all get pulled together and we’ve got say eight to 10 coaches in our age group,” Tusher said “It’s a big clinic and training camp where we’ll have specific focuses then play for like 2 ½ hours in the morning and then two hours later that day. It’s essentially an opportunity to get better with a bunch of girls representing USA and it sort of acts like a pipeline into the USA national team that actually travels and competes against other countries. That’s not something that either of us are in right now, but as we get older…”

NCAA beach volleyball is still a relatively new sport, being officially recognized since 2010. Six national championships have been awarded since 2016 with USC winning four and UCLA winning the other two.

That Tusher, Fisher and Matthews are all planning to play beach in college continues a recent trend of Marin’s top players eschewing the hardwood for the sand. Although the MCAL has yet to announce its player of the year for this season, all three athletes are likely to factor heavily in that conversation.

Redwood’s Elly Lundberg won the MCAL player of the year award in 2015 then played beach at Arizona State. Branson in particular has seen a slew of MCAL First Team selections gravitate toward beach in recent years, including Ashley Delgado, Sophie Swett, plus Elena’s older sister, Gia. Delgado and Gia Fisher currently play for Cal.

“I’ve definitely seen a lot of the strong players start drifting toward the beach for sure,” Brazil said. “Club volleyball can be a grind and there’s not a lot of options, especially in this area so I think that beach offers a lot in terms of a different environment. It’s still super competitive but club can be a grind and it can be a lot of pressure and sometimes the joy is taken away when it becomes too much of a grind.”

North Coast Section semifinals

(All games at 7 p.m. Wednesday)

D-II: Marin Catholic at Redwood

D-III: Archie Williams at Branson

D-III: University at Tam

D-IV: San Rafael at Marin Academy

D-VI: Mendocino at San Domenico