The reigning NCAA beach volleyball champions will send two pairs to the 2026 AVCA Beach National Championships, which will be held Nov. 6-8 in Huntsville, Ala. at the John Hunt Park Sand Volleyball Complex. Competing in the pairs tournament will be Harper Cooper/Alina Ryan and Taylor Ford/Cora Loomer.
The women's championship will consist of a 64-pair bracket of top collegiate pairs from 41 NCAA Division I and II programs. Matches start on Friday, Nov. 6 and continue through the final match on Sunday at 11:45 a.m. CT/9:45 a.m. PT. The seventh-seeded pair of Cooper and Ryan will open play on Friday against Tampa's Lauren Duke/Kaelyn Fredette-Huffman at 10:30am CT/8:30 a.m. PT. The No. 24 seed Ford and Loomer will take on South Carolina's Annalyse Askew and Brooke Balue at 8:00 a.m. CT/6:00 a.m. PT.
Cooper (Rowlett, Texas) is coming off a junior season in which she posted a 32-4 overall record, earning an AVCA Top Flight Award with Alexa Fernandez on Court 3. Cooper and Fernandez earned both NCAA and MPSF All-Tournament honors, and Cooper received second-team All-MPSF acclaim. She holds a 54-13 career mark in two seasons of play.
Ryan redshirted her freshman season at UCLA a year ago. Coming out of Raleigh, N.C. and Cardinal Gibbons HS, she was a 2025 AVCA Junior Beach first-team All-American and a two-time NCBVA All-State honoree. A member of the USA Beach Volleyball National Team Development Program, Ryan finished second at the 2025 AVP U18 National Championships with Bruin teammate Mallory LaBreche.
Ford, a senior from Danville, Calif., holds an 8-0 career record as a Bruin, going 6-0 in 2026 and 2-0 in 2025. Last season, she was 1-0 on court 3 with Kaley Mathews, 1-0 on court 4 with LaBreche, and 4-0 overall on court 5 with LaBreche and Cassie Dodd.
Loomer (Santa Barbara, Calif.) enters her freshman season as a 2026 AVCA Junior Beach second-team All-American and two-time BVCA National Champion. This summer, she picked up a pair of CBVA Tournament titles with LaBreche, winning tournaments in Ocean Park and Santa Barbara.
Quarterfinal and semifinal matches on Saturday and the third-place and championship matches on Sunday will be broadcast on ESPN+. Additional matches will be live-streamed on the AVCA YouTube channel. Click here for the broadcast schedule,
A UCLA pair has made the championship final in each of the last two seasons and the semifinal in each of the last three. Sally Perez and Maggie Boyd won the tournament in 2024 to become UCLA's first-ever champions. In 2025, Dodd and Alexa Fernandez finished second. Devon Newberry and Jaden Whitmarsh placed fourth in 2023.
The remainder of the Bruin team will be in action this weekend, hosting LMU and San Diego on Friday, Nov. 6 at Mapes Beach and playing at LMU on Saturday, Nov. 7.