On Saturday, Feb. 22, a perfect sunny day on the TMU Beach Volleyball Courts, The Master’s University beach volleyball team beat No. 8 Southern Oregon for the second day in a row but lost to former conference rival the Vanguard Lions.

The Sandy ‘Stangs beat the Raiders 4-1 with a slightly different lineup than the team used in Friday’s win.

“We shifted our lineup a little to give our sixes an opportunity to play in the fives spot,” said TMU Head Coach Annett Davis. “And Southern Oregon mixed up their lineup a little as well. Still happy with the solid performance from most of our pairs. Consistency is a goal this year across pairs.”

That sixes pair that moved into the fives was Emma Winter and Arianna DeRaffaele, which suffered the lone loss of the match 14-21, 16-21.

Annika Gudnason and Evi Roberts won their 1s match 21-9, 21-13; Faith Wada/Zoe Yates won 21-19, 21-15; Grace Colburn/Violet Avila won 21-14, 21-13; Ashlyn Unruh/Isabela Rodriguez won 21-15, 21-12.

In their afternoon match, TMU lost to Vanguard, now in NCAA Division II, 3-2.

The Master’s got wins from its twos pair of Wada and Yates (21-18, 21-13) and threes pair of Colburn and Avila (21-11, 21-14).

The key match came down to the fives, with TMU’s Ellie Niehus and Ellie Unruh taking it to a third set before falling (21-18, 18-21, 9-15).

“Vanguard was a good test for us,” Davis said. “I think nine matches in about 10 days is a lot. I think we ran out of steam. Very proud of the girls though for working hard through it all.”

The Sandy ‘Stangs will next travel to San Dimas on Wednesday, Feb. 25 to take on the Life Pacific Warriors. First serves will happen at 1 p.m.