IRVINE, Calif. –    Sophomore Bridget Miller earns a spot on the All-Big West Second Team, while sophomore Chelsea Johnson, redshirt junior Gianna Nocetti, sophomore Sadie Henry, and senior Kelly Hungerford pick up the honorable mention titles.
 
After the 2024 season, Johnson and Miller were named to the All-Big West Freshman squad, while Nocetti has a repeat offense with the honorable mention title; making it the second year in a row that the trio earns conference nods. This is Hungerford’s first award after her knockout curtain closing season, and Henry’s first title as well.
 
The center from Ladera Ranch, California put up some impressive stats for the Aggies, posing as a consistent threat in the water to the other teams. Miller led the team in goals with 47 on the season, and added 8 assists, 15 steals, and drew a whopping 57 exclusions. She totaled up fifteen multi-goal games of the 28 played, scoring 4 against Cal Baptist, UC Merced, and Cal State Fullerton. A marksman in her craft, Miller has maintained a perfect shooting rate in the game five times this season as well.
 
Hungerford, originally rooted from Santa Ana, California, led the team in assists with 47 on the season; also breaking the Davis career assist record, now crowned at the top with 154. She has also put up 20 goals, 45 steals, 14 drawn kickouts, and 14 field blocks. Hungerford had a monumental game versus UC Irvine, where she found the back of the net five times and added two assists to her stat line in the one game alone. She aided her teammates’ offense and made five assists on two separate occasions: versus Pacific and Cal State Monterey and has had five multi-goal games this season.
 
From Carmichael, California, Nocetti is notorious for her sprint winning and relentless attacker for the Aggies. With 38 goals on the season, she balanced that with 29 assists, 30 steals, 10 drawn exclusions, and five field blocks. She won 72 sprints for the Aggies, with an 86% success rate to begin the quarters off with a victory. She registered multi-goal game streaks on three separate occasions for the team and put up a season-high of four goals against Loyola Marymount.
 
Henry, the San Diego native is second behind Miller in goals with 44 to her name. The feisty attacker has also generated the wheel of offense for the Aggies with 9 assists, 51 drawn ejections, and has added 13 steals and 7 field blocks. She has logged five hat tricks on the season, four of which are coupled up in back-to-back matches. She has had 11 multi-goal games on the season, and has scored a career-high of five against Loyola Marymount. Most notably at the Triton Invite, she netted 14 goals across the four games the Aggies competed in.
 
Finally, from Brisbane, Australia, Johnson was the starting defender for the Ags, trusted to lead the team in minutes played with 582. Elevating her game beyond the defensive end, she has made 26 goals, 32 assists, 42 steals, 35 drawn ejections, and five field blocks. She tallied up tow hat tricks, one against Loyola Marymount and one against Stanford. She made a season’s best of four steals versus USC, showing off her ability to play both ends of the pool.
 
Miller is the 17th in Aggie history to make the second team’s roster, while the quartet of honorable mentions total the count up to 28.
 

NBC News wants to play a game that has not always interested the nation’s biggest purveyors of TV news.

As NBC Sports prepares its coverage for this weekend’s Kentucky Derby, NBC News’ digital outlet, NBCNews.com, will feature a hub that offers content from NBC Sports, access to NBC Sports’ free ad-supported streaming channel and sports coverage from a team NBC News has been building to cover sports. Also on hand: sports explainers from Steve Kornacki. The new sports hub will also surface in NBC News’ mobile app.

There is more to come, says Rebecca Blumenstein, president of editorial for NBC News. “We are combining NBC Sports’ deep expertise and exclusive content with the editorial strengths and wide reach of NBC News to establish a destination on NBCNews.com for smart, accessible sports coverage for a broad audience. Sports has a growing influence on American culture, and this collaboration comes as interest in major leagues, events, moments and athletes are greater than ever.”

At TV companies, sports coverage has often been the province of a network’s sports division. While local stations always feature a regular anchor for sports news, there’s rarely a break from David Muir on, say, “World News Tonight” for the scores of the day. Offering that, of course, could dissuade a viewer from wandering over to ESPN – like ABC News, part of Walt Disney — and watching an hour of “Sports Center.”

Nor have cable-news outlets devoted much time to sports coverage in recent years. CNN once made sports a staple of its lineup, with a nightly show anchored by Nick Charles called “Sports Tonight.” In a different era, CNN even launched a sports-news network, CNN/SI. And Fox News Media has tested sports concepts, launching a documentary about the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide in February for its Fox Nation streaming service.

There may be more reasons now to open a new playbook. Sports programming has become increasingly important to the economics of traditional media outlets — particularly NBC. The network already devotes Sunday nights to NFL football games, and will, thanks to the debut of a new rights deal with the NBA, add basketball as many as two nights per week (and a third on the Peacock streaming hub). Indeed, next February, NBC will feature hours of Winter Olympics coverage as well as a Super Bowl.

Other NBC News outlets have tried to follow the ball. At “Today,” co-anchors Craig Melvin and Savannah Guthrie have described an effort aimed at weaving more sports into the program, reflecting NBC’s ties to the NFL and the NBA.  Melvin has also taken part in Olympics coverage and is expected to do so again for next year’s Winter Olympics in Milan.

CNBC has in recent months also put a new focus on sports. The business-news outlet now operates a vertical devoted to the business of sports ,and its offering includes a weekly newsletter, events, data and even documentaries. The venture is a separate one from NBC News, and will likely remain so. CNBC is among the properties slated to be spun off into a new publicly traded company by the end of the year.

NBC News has launched an editorial team devoted to sports. Editor Greg Rosenstein joined from The Athletic, while Rohan Nadkarni came from Sports Illustrated. Andrew Greif, a former sports reporter for the Los Angeles Times, also contributes.

NBC News will next tackle the Preakness Stakes on May 17. “We’re excited to continue to build on this,” says Blumenstein.

Gulf Shores is the headquarters for the NCAA national championship tournament for beach volleyball. The Alabama beach town has hosted the tourney since its inception in 2016.

This year, the 16-team tourney is going on now through Sunday. Schedule, details and tickets are available here.

The tourney was not supposed to return to Gulf Shores this year. For the first time, it was slated for Huntington Beach, Calif. However, the Good Lord and the California fires of 2024 did not cooperate with that site, and the tourney unexpectedly returned to its Gulf Shores home.

Two SEC teams made the national tourney this year, LSU and Texas.

In the nine years of the tourney, one team has been dominant: the University of Southern California. The Lady Trojans have won six of the nine national championships, including the past four. This year, USC is back in Gulf Shores trying for a five-peat.

The games played are single elimination and involve 16 colleges that earned selection after the regular season. The final game to determine the national champion will be played on Sunday.

Jim ‘Zig’ Zeigler writes about Alabama’s people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths.  He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at [email protected].

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HONOLULU — After claiming the conference regular season and championship titles, the University of Hawai’i women’s water polo team swept the Big West’s major awards and a total of seven members of the program received postseason recognition from the conference.
 
The Big West announced its 2025 awards on Friday and Bernadette Doyle’s all-around performance earned the senior conference Player of the Year honors in voting of the league’s coaches. Ema Vernoux, the team’s leading goal scorer, was named the Freshman of the Year, and James Robinson was voted Coach of the Year in his first season leading the Rainbow Wahine.
 
Doyle and Vernoux, both attackers, also made the All-Big West First Team along with goalkeeper Daisy Logtens. Senior utility Jordan Wedderburn was a second-team selection and junior attacker Roni Perlman earned honorable mention recognition. Vernoux and attacker Gabrielle Doyle also made the All-Freshman team.
 
Bernadette Doyle became the fifth UH student-athlete to be voted Big West Player of the Year and the Rainbow Wahine program claimed the honor for the seventh time in 12 years of conference membership. The left-hander from New Zealand has served as a catalyst for the ‘Bows on both ends of the pool, ranking second on the team with 91 total points with 53 goals and a team-high 38 assists. She’s also tied for the Big West lead with 51 steals and is second on the team with 13 field blocks. In Big West regular-season play, she led the conference with 37 points (19 goals, 18 assists) and tied for second with 14 steals. She has 12 hat tricks this season and posted a career game in the Big West Championship semifinals on April 26 when she tied her previous best with five goals and set a new high with eight steals in an 11-9 win over UC San Diego. She also became just the second player in program history to post at least 100 goals, assists and steals in a career.
 
Coming off an appearance in the Paris Olympics in her home country, Vernoux made an instant impact in Mānoa, becoming the sixth UH player to be named Big West Freshman of the Year. Her total of 75 goals is the fourth highest single-season total in program history and she is on pace to become just the third UH player to average at least 3.0 goals per match in a season. She’s led the UH attack in volume and efficiency with a team-high 16 hat tricks and a .556 shooting percentage.
 
Logtens made the All-Big West first-team for the second consecutive season and leads the conference with a 9.02 goals-against average and ranks fourth with 193 saves in her sophomore season. She was named the Most Valuable Player of the Big West Championship after posting 14 saves in UH’s 8-6 win over Long Beach State to capture the ‘Bows’ second straight title.
 
Wedderburn earned All-Big West honors for the first time in her career while anchoring the middle of the UH attack. She’s second on the team 65 goals, tied for UH’s eighth highest single-season total, and created power-play opportunities with a team-high 69 drawn exclusions. The senior from South Africa has 14 hat tricks this season and scored a career-high seven goals in a win over UC Irvine on Feb. 2 in the Triton Invitational. In Big West matches, she led the team and ranked second in the conference with 22 goals. She tied program records with three Big West Player of the Week awards this season and four in her career. Wedderburn also earned the UH athletic department’s highest honor on Wednesday as a recipient of the Jack Bonham Award.
 
Perlman also earned conference honors for the first time after posting 32 assists to rank second on the team to go along with 15 goals.
 
Gabrielle Doyle joined the roster in January and ranks second on the team with 34 steals, trailing her older sister. She also has 14 goals and 10 assists.
 
Robinson ascended to head coach after two seasons as UH associate head coach under Maureen Cole and extended the ‘Bows’ Big West reign. After losing four of the team’s top five scorers following the 2024 season, UH was voted second in the Big West preseason poll. The ‘Bows went on to sweep through the conference’s regular-season schedule for the second straight year and retained the Big West Championship title. Robinson guided the ‘Bows to their third straight 20-win season and 12^th overall.
 
The Rainbow Wahine (21-4) are preparing for the National Collegiate Women’s Water Polo Championship in Indianapolis. UH is the fourth-seed in the bracket and will face California in a first-round match on May 9 at the IU Natatorium.
 

#WahineWP

LEXINGTON, Ky. – The American Volleyball Coaches Association released its annual list of Top Flight award winners today and the University of Tennessee at Martin racked up the honors. The Skyhawks placed three pairs (Kayla Bryant/Olivia O’Keefe, Lauren Mariscal/Jenna Vallée and Sydney Eckhardt/Reagan McGee) on the prestigious list, doubling the previous amount of winners the program had produced in the storied history of the award.
              
Today’s announcement marks the second career AVCA Top Flight award for both Vallée and McGee, joining Kayla Carrell as the only two-time honorees of this accolade. The six 2025 UT Martin winners join Carrell/McGee (2024), Haeleigh Paulino/Vallée (2023) and Carrell/Addison Conley (2022) as the program’s all-time recipients of this award.
              
Now in its seventh year, the AVCA Top Flight program recognizes beach pairs who compete in at least 15 matches together at a specific flight and win at least 75 percent of their matches prior to the NCAA Tournament. This year, just 88 pairs representing 45 schools from all three NCAA divisions, NAIA, and two-year colleges earned Top Flight status.
              
The Skyhawks were one of just eight NCAA Division I schools to boast at least three pairs on this year’s Top Flight list. Overall, 51 Division I pairs made the cut – including only a dozen recipients out of the No. 2 position in the lineup and nine apiece in both the No. 3 and No. 4 spots. UT Martin is responsible for three of the seven Ohio Valley Conference pairs on the 2025 AVCA Top Flight list.
              
An All-OVC first team duo, Bryant/O’Keefe become the first Skyhawks to win an AVCA Top Flight award out of the No. 2 slot in the lineup. That pair reeled off a 25-7 overall record this spring, which ranks as the most pair victories in school history. The duo actually qualified for the Top Flight award in both the No. 2 (12-3, .800 winning percentage) and No. 3 (13-4, .765) positions, going 9-1 against OVC competition. They reeled off two different winning streaks of at least nine matches in 2025, including a stretch of 20 victories in 21 decisions (with 11 wins in a row at one point) from March 14 through April 19. The tandem set a school record with three separate OVC Pair of the Week honors this spring, winning that award on March 5, March 25 and April 15.
              
Mariscal/Vallée are the first-ever UT Martin pair at No. 3 to claim the AVCA Top Flight award. This pair did not team up together until March 22 but went on a torrid stretch thereafter – going 13-3 (.813 winning percentage) overall with a 5-1 mark against league foes. Mariscal, the 2025 OVC Freshman of the Year, and two-time All-OVC honoree Vallée won six of their first seven matchups and eight of their last nine decisions, capping off a spectacular season with OVC Championship All-Tournament medallions.
              
Fresh off a selection on the All-OVC second team, Eckhardt/McGee also earned a spot on the OVC Championship All-Tournament squad. Joining forces for the first time on March 7, this pair went 25-4 overall – equaling Bryant/O’Keefe for the most single-season wins in school history – and solidified its Top Flight status at the No. 4 slot with a 24-2 mark, easily setting the school record for highest career winning percentage (.923) at that position. They won their first 14 matchups together – not suffering a loss until March 29 – and ended the season with 11 wins in their last 12 tries.
              
These six helped the Skyhawks finish the 2025 campaign with a 24-10 record, trailing only the 2023 squad’s 27 wins as the most in school history. UT Martin advanced to the OVC Championship finals for the fourth time in the five-year history of the tournament but narrowly fell by a 3-2 margin at Chattanooga.
 

GULF SHORES, Ala. – No. 14 Boise State beach volleyball fell to No. 3 Stanford, 3-0, in the opening round of the 2025 Beach Volleyball National Championship, Friday afternoon.

The Broncos, who competed at the national tournament for the first time in program history, finished the season with a 23-12 record.

With all five courts beginning at the same time, Stanford’s No. 5 pair of Daria Gusarova and Emmy Sharp claimed the first point, defeating Boise State’s Charlee Ellena and Lily Patock, 21-11, 21-15.

Moments later, the Cardinal grabbed another victory, this time from the No. 4 position as Chloe Hoffman and Logan Tusher defeated Emilia Guerra-Acuña and Elli Wolthuis, 21-14, 21-13

Stanford clinched the dual from the No. 3 court, as Kelly Belardi and Charlotta Bell defeated Avery Allen and Abbie Wolf 21-18, 21-12.

Quotables

“This group should be incredibly proud of the season that they had. This team accomplished something that no other team in Boise State history has ever accomplished. They set a goal at the beginning of the season to reach the National Tournament and they went out and did it. It sucks losing in the moment but this group has so much to be proud of.” – head coach Allison Voigt

“As a coach, I’m wired to constantly be thinking of the future. Stanford is an incredible team. It took them a couple of years to get used to it here and now they’re one of the top teams in the nation. We just got to this tournament and got a taste of what it’s like. Now we have to come back. Our program has been on the rise the last couple of years and we have zero plans of slowing down.” – Voigt

Full Results

No. 3 Stanford def. No. 14 Boise State 3-0 (Order of Finish: 5,4,3)

1: Allyson Alden/Sharli O’Neil (BOI) vs. Ruby Sorra vs. Taylor Wilson (STAN) 11-21, 18-20 unfinished

2: Ava Anderson/Addison Wolden (BOI) vs. Avery Jackson/Brooke Rockwell (STAN) 18-21, 17-19 unfinished

3: Kelly Belardi/Charlotta Bell (STAN) def. Avery Allen/Abbie Wolf (BOI) 21-18, 21-12

4: Chloe Hoffman/Logan Tusher (STAN) def. Emilia Guerra-Acuña/Elli Wolthuis (BOI) 21-14, 21-13

5: Daria Gusarova/Emmy Sharp (STAN) def. Charlee Ellena/Lily Patock (BOI) 21-11, 21-15