![\"USD"s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/SUT-L-tow-1015-01.jpg\")
USD\u201ds Nemo Beach, left, celebrates with teammate Olivia Bennett during a match earlier this season. (Thomas Christensen, USD athletics)<\/p>\nSuccess is no stranger to the University of San Diego\u2019s women\u2019s volleyball team and Toreros coach Jennifer Petrie.<\/p>\n
USD has played in the NCAA Tournament 22 times in Petrie\u2019s 26 seasons. She owns a 527-190 career record and has been the West Coast Conference Coach of the Year seven times, the Regional Coach of the Year three times and the National Coach of the Year in 2022. That year, USD made the Final Four for the first time in program history.<\/p>\n
Petrie has coached 11 All-Americans, 12 honorable mention All-Americans and nine WCC championship teams.<\/p>\n
Petrie knows talent and success. But there\u2019s excitement in her voice when she discusses the 2025 Toreros.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sky is the limit for this team,\u201d Petrie said Monday evening while discussing a team that is 13-4 overall and has opened WCC play with six straight wins. The Toreros hold a one-game lead over Oregon State and Washington State atop the WCC standings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to be the best team in the country and we\u2019re creating that opportunity. We\u2019re getting there. I see sparks and I see continual improvement. We\u2019re still pretty young, but these players get it. They see what it can be. They\u2019re very committed. We\u2019re going to be good for a long while now. They want to carry the legacy forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Toreros\u2019 roster is deep in quality talent, starting with outside hitter Nemo Beach and setter Kylie Munday, both of whom were named WCC Players of the Week last week for, respectively, the third and second times of the young season.<\/p>\n
A junior from Chandler, Ariz., the 5-foot-11 Beach is averaging 4.41 points and 3.99 kills per set. She spikes from a vertical height of 10 feet with a force duplicated by few in the women\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeach is crushing it,\u201d said Petrie. \u201cShe is having a breakout year. She was always a good player, but she is becoming an elite player. But we have a lot of weapons. If you put all eyes on Nemo, there\u2019s Isabel Clark, Kali Engeman, freshman Ava Durgan, BayLea Sparks and Kennedy Osunsanmi. And that\u2019s just up front. Libero and defensive specialist Olivia Bennett is excellent at ball control. And Munday is incredible at setter \u2026 smart, a leader and a great athlete. We\u2019re in a pretty good place. We\u2019re using pieces to our advantage. The defense is getting tighter. I feel pretty proud of the progress we\u2019re making.\u201d<\/p>\n
Munday said the Toreros are \u201cbetter this week than we were last week. And we were better last week than two weeks ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always played well as a team. But now our individual skills are picking up and blending into the bigger picture,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t realize it, but volleyball might be the most demanding team sport out there. What I do depends on the defense getting me the ball. And our front line is dependent on the setter making the right decision and executing the play. One great player can\u2019t make you successful. It\u2019s so much teamwork and strategy. The biggest challenge for us is sustaining that high level of play.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Toreros had a six-week head start on other NCAA women\u2019s volleyball teams when they were selected to represent the United States in the World University Games. They traveled to Berlin in July for what Beach called \u201ca great jump-start\u201d to the season.<\/p>\n
But USD stumbled out of the gate, losing all three matches they played at the Trojan Invitational at USC.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a black mark on our resume,\u201d said Petrie.<\/p>\n
The Toreros then fell at home to UC San Diego, which is just 4-14 this season.<\/p>\n
Since then, they\u2019ve won six consecutive matches.\u00a0A straight-sets win over Portland and a four-set win over Oregon State last week boosted USD 15 spots to No. 40 in the NCAA rankings \u2014 the biggest gain last week by a team ranked among the top 50.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything is piecing together perfectly,\u201d said Beach, a returning all-WCC first teamer who was the conference\u2019s Freshman of the Year in 2023. \u201cThis year, I\u2019m looking to win the WCC, go deep in the NCAAs, be named the WCC Player of the Year and become an All-American.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
USD\u201ds Nemo Beach, left, celebrates with teammate Olivia Bennett during a match earlier this season. (Thomas Christensen, USD athletics)<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-1 Engeman is a graduate student transfer from Georgia Tech. \u201cShe has been a bright spot for us,\u201d said Petrie. \u201cShe wanted to make an impact. She brings a lot of energy.<\/p>\n
\u201cClark (who averages 5.4 points a set) handles pressure really well and has a really heavy arm when she hits the ball. Durgan has been a super addition to the right side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s Bennett.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is the firecracker,\u201d Petrie said. \u201cShe has a very respected voice as a leader.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Toreros travel this week to Washington, visiting Washington State on Thursday and Seattle University on Saturday for WCC matches. Both matches will be streamed on ESPN+.<\/p>\n
Every week during the school year, U-T contributor Bill Center highlights one San Diego college team that\u2019s making strides on and off the field. To nominate a team, email wcenter27@gmail.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Success is no stranger to the University of San Diego\u2019s women\u2019s volleyball team and Toreros coach Jennifer Petrie.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1327,181,74,76,75,127,3425],"class_list":{"0":"post-4641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-toreros"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}