Baton Rouge, La. – The Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) has announced the addition of Florida State University, Louisiana State University, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Texas to its beach volleyball programs, giving the conference 11 teams beginning with the 2026 season. The Seminoles, Tigers, Gamecocks, and Longhorns, who are competing in their final season in the Coastal Collegiate Sports Association (CCSA) this year, will each be making their first-ever appearance in any sport in the MPSF. Florida State’s athletic programs are primarily affiliated with the ACC, while LSU, South Carolina, and Texas compete in the SEC for the majority of their sports. The MPSF’s inaugural beach volleyball season in 2025 features California, Grand Canyon, Oregon, Stanford, UCLA, USC, and Washington. The first edition of the MPSF Beach Volleyball Championship will be held at Spiker Beach in Huntington Beach, CA, April 23-25, 2025.
Florida State, located in Tallahassee, FL, is the only beach volleyball program to have played in every AVCA and NCAA Championship Tournament (2012-19, 2021-24). The Seminoles have an all-time win percentage of .812 and are four-time national runners-up since the inception of the program in 2012. Florida State is coming off a 31-8 season in 2024, capturing its seventh all-time CCSA title out of eight contested years. The program has accumulated 21 AVCA All-American recognitions all-time, among 17 different players. A three-time conference coach of the year and once national coach of the year, Brooke Niles enters her 10th year as head coach in 2025 and has led the program to a final AVCA Top-six ranking each year.
LSU, located in Baton Rouge, LA, has finished in the AVCA top-six each year since its fourth season in 2017. That time span covers the entire era of Head Coach Russell Brock, with an NCAA Championship appearance in each season since. The Tigers have finished third nationally three times (2024, 2021, 2019), with 27 wins in five seasons and surpassing 30 wins twice. Brock was the 2018 volleyballmag.com and 2019 Dig Magazine National Coach of the Year, as well as the 2017 CCSA Coach of the Year, while the Tigers have totaled eight All-American honors in his tenure.
South Carolina, located in Columbia, SC, is coming off its seventh 20-plus win season in 2024 over the 11 years of the program, in which Moritz Moritz has been the head coach since the inception. Moritz was the 2018 CCSA Coach of the Year, after a program record 24 wins. The Gamecocks have two NCAA Championship appearances in their history (2017-18).
Texas, located in Austin, TX, completed its second season of competition in 2024. Last year was the first under head coach Stein Metzger, who had won two NCAA Championships while at the helm of UCLA. The Longhorns posted their first-ever win against a ranked team with a 4-1 victory over No. 20 Texas A&M Corpus Christi to end the 2024 season.
Since hiring MPSF Executive Director Foti Mellis in 2021, the conference has added six sports, 50 teams, and 21 schools. “We are excited to welcome Florida State, LSU, South Carolina, and Texas to the MPSF for Beach Volleyball,” said Mellis. “Adding these strong and successful teams enhances the competitiveness of our conference. They will undoubtedly elevate the intensely competitive nature alongside the MPSF’s existing high-caliber teams. With USC having won six of the eight NCAA Beach Volleyball Championships and UCLA securing the other two titles, the MPSF was already a formidable and demanding place to play. Including our newest members, seven of the eleven teams competed in the
NCAA Championships in 2024. The 2026 MPSF Championship tournament will be one for the ages!”
The MPSF enters the 2025 calendar year with 118 total national championships, with its 112 NCAA titles leading the nation amongst Non-Power Four Conferences. The MPSF won four NCAA titles in each of the 2022-23 and 2023-24 academic years.
MPSF Beach Volleyball information, including specific championship details, is located on the conference website’s championship central page at mpsports.org. Follow the MPSF on social media @MPSFSports.
WHAT THEY ARE SAYING ABOUT THE ADDITIONS TO MPSF BEACH VOLLEYBALL
“We are dedicated to creating an outstanding and nationally competitive experience for our student-athletes and feel this move to join the MPSF Conference is an important step to compete the highest level and ultimately winning a National Championship. Our group is built of trailblazing student-athletes and a world class coaching staff that have set the foundation of our program, and this conference affiliation will help pave the way for future success.”
– Sarah Baumgartner, University of Texas Executive Senior Associate Athletics Director for Sports Administration
“Joining the MPSF Conference provides our student-athletes the opportunity to compete against some of the nation’s best. I look forward to growing the MPSF and have nothing but great respect for the coaches and programs already here. With the ever-changing landscape of college athletics, this move will continue to support women’s collegiate athletics, specifically Beach Volleyball, and will have the Texas Longhorns competing against some of the top institutions.”
– Stein Metzger, University of Texas Head Coach
“One of our primary objectives at LSU Athletics is to give our student-athletes the opportunity to compete –and win –at the highest levels. The MPSF Conference is an elite conference for beach volleyball and we are thrilled that our student-athletes will have the opportunity to compete against the best teams in the country at the conference level.”
– Scott Woodward, LSU Athletic Director
“We are excited to join the MPSF next year. As a collegiate athlete who personally participated in the MPSF, I know and respect the excellence and history that the conference brings to the table. We could not be more pleased as we join with our group to battle in the most elite and competitive beach volleyball conference in the country.”
– Russell Brock, LSU Head Coach
“MPSF is an amazing conference with amazing teams. To be the best you have to compete against the best so aligning ourselves with this conference will provide us with the most competitive environment for our athletes.”
-Brooke Niles, Florida State Head Coach
“We are accustomed to competing in one of the toughest leagues in the country on an annual basis. This move will create the strongest conference in the country, top to bottom, and exponentially raises the level of competitiveness. We are all striving to reach the highest level, and this conference will pit top-five, top-10, top-20-caliber teams against each other at every corner. It’s an opportunity to step up and respond. The level of collegiate beach volleyball is already so high and I believe this will continue to push it higher.”
– Moritz Moritz, South Carolina Head Coach