I alluded to this young lady’s career path a bit in my coverage of the Thailand Open (where I do believe I saw every one of her team’s matches). Let’s explore it in a bit more depth.
Ross was born December 20, 1992, making her a few weeks from the big 2-0. She is not related to April Ross, despite both being Southern California natives, though she does come from a family of athletes. Her brother played on Pepperdine’s men’s volleyball team as an outside hitter, and her mother’s cousin played college football at the University of Washington. Ross too began her collegiate career with the Huskies, playing outside hitter.
But from the outset, Ross was destined for the beach. At just 15 years of age, Ross and her partner Jane Croson became the youngest tandem ever to participate in the FIVB Junior World Championships for beach volleyball, placing ninth. A year later, that same duo went back to to the Junior World Championships and improved to fifth. Ross also took fifth at the Youth World Championships (Youth is U19, Junior is U21…it’s a bit curious that she went to the older-bracket event first). Also in 2009, Ross and Natalie Hagglund (yes, that Natalie Hagglund) became the youngest women’s team ever to qualify for the main draw of an AVP tour event.
2010, though, was the year Ross really arrived as a major name. Along with Croson, Ross this time won the U19 Youth World Championships, becoming the first American women ever to medal in the event and the first Americans of either gender to win the gold. Some six weeks later, Ross and Tara Roenicke won the U21 Junior World Championships, becoming the first Americans to medal there as well. She was the first player, male or female, ever to win both the Youth and Junior World Championships in the same year, and she was also named USA Volleyball Female Beach Player of the Year, the first time the award ever went to anyone but a senior professional.
This made Ross one of the most coveted college recruits in the nation entering 2011, her first year of college eligibility. Attending, as mentioned, the University of Washington, Ross and Krista Vansant proved a devastating 1-2 punch as hitters. Both freshmen started every match for the Huskies, were prodigious scorers, and were honored by the Pac-12 at year’s end.
But the call of the beach was a siren song for Ross. After the Huskies bowed out of the NCAA tournament against Minnesota in the second round, Ross informed UW head coach Jim McLaughlin that she wanted to transfer to a school that offered ‘sand’ volleyball (as the NCAA calls it). Washington does not sponsor the sport; though they and USC had considered it, no other Pac-12 schools were interested, meaning it was not feasible.
Ross’ transfer destination was pretty obvious — Pepperdine. The Waves do sponsor ‘sand’ volleyball (fer chrissakes, it’s called beach volleyball dangit!) and being her brother’s alma mater, Ross was surely already familiar with the school. She also said the fact that it is a ‘Christian school’ (all WCC schools are faith-based…all but BYU and Pepperdine are Catholic, in fact) also played a part in the decision.
With Pepperdine, Ross achieved great success, leading the Waves to the first national championship for a women’s team sport in the school’s history. As only about two dozen schools currently sponsor beach volleyball, it’s not yet a fully sanctioned NCAA sport. This national championship was conducted under the auspices of the AVCA. The Waves never lost a meet, and won the double-elimination championship by defeating the College of Charleston and Long Beach State twice. Ross and partner Caitlin Racich also won the pairs championship, defeating Ross’ old partner Tara Roenicke from Long Beach State in a dramatic three-set encounter where they staved off three match points in the third set.
It seems that Ross has either lost or decided to forego her remaining college eligibility, as she should have had two years remaining but is not listed on the roster section for Pepperdine’s beach volleyball squad. Maybe it’s because she’s playing internationally now (NCAA student-athletes are forbidden from playing professionally, on pain of losing their college eligibility), but she played an FIVB tournament in 2011, losing with Roenicke in country quota play. So I dunno. The Bangsaen Open, which I covered in detail, was actually Ross’ third FIVB tournament of 2012. She partnered with Nicole Branagh, someone who has had her number as an opponent, at the Berlin Grand Slam. Despite this being the first time they had ever played as partners (even informally), they advanced out of pool play and finished above their seed. Ross also partnered with Roenicke at the Klagenfurt Grand Slam, but they did not advance from pool play there. The run in Bangsaen with Heather Hughes capped off Ross’ year.
One thing you may have noticed is that Ross has had quite a large number number of partners — 15 to be precise. Partnerships tend to be somewhat fluid in beach volleyball, with a few notable exceptions, but they’re not normally that fluid. It’ll do Ross quite good to settle down with a regular or at least semi-regular teammate. I thought she and Heather Hughes had pretty good synergy in Bangsaen, which would only improve over time. She has played most frequently with Roenicke and Croson, though it does not appear that Croson is pursuing an international professional career at this time. But whoever it is, I think this is the big thing Ross needs to shoot for. She’s got all the talent and physical skills in the world — a little stability would be a huge step in the right direction for a career that’s bound for great things.
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