CONWAY, S.C. — Coastal Carolina opens the 2026 season at home with the Coastal Carolina Invitational, featuring Duke and Queens University of Charlotte. The Chanticleers will face Duke on Friday night and Queens on Sunday afternoon, with the Blue Devils and Royals meeting Saturday. Coastal is seeking its first win over Duke and will face Queens for the first time since 1991. Both Coastal matches will be streamed on ESPN+, while Saturday’s Duke-Queens match will not be streamed.<\/p>\n
COASTAL CAROLINA INVITATIONAL SCOUTING DUKE SCOUTING QUEENS SERIES HISTORY | vs. Duke<\/a> | vs. Queens<\/a> OPENING AT HOME LID LIFTERS POWER TESTS NEW-LOOK GROUP
\nFriday, Aug. 28 |\u00a0\u00a0Duke at Coastal Carolina | 6 p.m. | ESPN+<\/a> | Live Stats<\/a>
\nSaturday, Aug. 29 | Queens vs. Duke | 3 p.m. | Live Stats<\/a>
\nSunday, Aug. 30 | Queens at Coastal Carolina | 1 p.m. | ESPN+<\/a> | Live Stats<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Duke is under the direction of first-year head coach Ahen Kim, who spent the previous three seasons as head coach at American.
\n\u2022 The Blue Devils posted a 5-26 record last season, including a 2-18 mark in ACC play. They ended the season on a 14-match losing streak.
\n\u2022 Duke returns 12 letterwinners and welcomes five newcomers.
\n\u2022 Sophomore Olivia Wayne is the Blue Devils’ top returning hitter by hitting percentage (.181).
\n\u2022 Junior Taylor Williams led the Blue Devils with 331 kills last season, followed by sophomore Ashby Zubchevich with 330.
\n\u2022 As a freshman last season, Charlotte Glass led Duke with 615 assists, while fellow rookie Mailinh Godschall recorded a team-high 451 digs.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 The Royals are coming off an 18-12 season and a sixth-place finish in the Atlantic Sun Conference. Queens was picked to finish fifth in the ASUN this season.
\n\u2022 Sophomore outside hitter Elizabeth Layson was named to the preseason all-conference team. She recorded a team-high 293 kills and averaged 2.57 kills per set while hitting .215 as a freshman.
\n\u2022 Queens also returns its leaders in hitting percentage (Emma Norris, .298), assists per set (Tyler Peluso, 5.32), service aces (Megan Kelly, 24), digs per set (Tilley Collins, 3.96) and total blocks (Norris, 120; 1.08 per set).<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Coastal is 0-5 all-time against Duke with four of those matches being played in Durham, N.C. The Chants hosted the Blue Devils once previously in 2021, falling 3-2 after winning the first two sets. It was the only time Coastal wasn’t swept by the Blue Devils.
\n\u2022 The Chants haven’t faced Queens since beating them twice in 1991, the only previous meetings between the schools.<\/p>\n
\nCoastal Carolina will open the season at the HTC Center for just the fourth time since the facility opened in 2012 when it hosts Duke on Friday, Aug. 28. The Chants are 1-2 in their previous season openers at the HTC Center, with losses to Youngstown State in 2013 and Duke in 2021 and a win over Maryland last season. Coastal is 11-3 overall in home openers at the facility, including wins over Power 4 opponents Georgia Tech (2016), TCU (2023) and Maryland (2025). The Chants have won four straight home openers and 11 of their last 12.<\/p>\n
\nThe Chanticleers are 23-15 in season openers since joining Division I in 1987. Friday’s match will mark the sixth time they have opened against a Power 4 opponent. Coastal is 2-3 in the previous five, defeating Alabama (2003) and Maryland (2025) and falling to Wake Forest (2010), Clemson (2012) and Duke (2021).<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Coastal Carolina will face four power-conference opponents this season, including three at home: Duke (Aug. 28), Indiana (Sept. 18) and NC State (Sept. 20). The Chanticleers will also travel to face Tennessee (Sept. 12).
\n\u2022 The Chanticleers went 2-3 against power-conference opponents last season, defeating Maryland and NC State and falling to Miami (Fla.), North Carolina and South Carolina.
\n\u2022 Coastal has earned six wins over power-conference opponents in the past three seasons: TCU and Virginia in 2023, Virginia and NC State in 2024, and Maryland and NC State in 2025.<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 The Chanticleers welcome nine newcomers to their roster: five transfers \u2014 Natalie Hughes<\/a>, Amarah Johnson<\/a>, Kaylee Musick<\/a>, Jonna Spohn<\/a> and Hatteras Welker<\/a> \u2014 and four freshmen \u2014 Abby Bucey<\/a>, Isabele Filardo<\/a>, Talia Johnson<\/a> and Viara Parapunova<\/a>.
\n\u2022 Hughes (San Diego State), Spohn (Maryland) and Welker (Eastern Michigan) enrolled a semester early, while Musick (FIU) joined the team over the summer. Johnson (NC Central) joined the team two weeks into preseason after initially accepting a graduate assistant position with CCU Student-Athlete Academic Services.
\n\u2022 Talia Johnson<\/a> graduated from Richmond Hill High School a semester early and joined the Chants in January. Bucey, Filardo and Parapunova arrived on campus for the second summer session.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CONWAY, S.C. — Coastal Carolina opens the 2026 season at home with the Coastal Carolina Invitational, featuring Duke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-331763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}