UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State track and field head coach John Gondak has announced the hiring of Darrell Hill, class of 2015, a three-time All-American Penn State alumnus and 2016 Olympian, as assistant coach. Hill returns to his alma mater to coach the throws group.

Hill returns to his alma mater after spending the last two years on staff at Delaware, including serving as associate head coach for the 2024-25 season.

Players traveling

Four Penn State student-athletes are among the contingent of students traveling to Greece as part of Harvard’s Sport and Education Program. The student-athletes participating in the trip are wrestling’s Hayden Cunningham, women’s lacrosse’s Abby Baker, and track & field’s Madeleine Soderqvist and Gabriella Recce.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (July 4, 2025) — The U.S. Women’s Sitting National Team began play at the 2025 Dutch Tournament with two wins on Friday in Assen, Netherlands. The U.S. defeated Italy, 3-1 (23-25, 25-22, 25-23, 25-22) and then swept France, 3-0 (25-17, 25-5, 25-14).

MATCH STATISTICS VS. ITALY

vs. ITALY

The U.S. began the tournament with a thrilling four-set win over Italy in which no set was decided by more than three points. The U.S. finished with advantages in kills (47-40) and blocks (17-14), while Italy led in aces (20-15).

Nicky Nieves led three U.S. players in double figures with 17 points on 12 kills, two blocks and three aces. Whitney Dosty totaled 15 points on eight kills, four blocks and three aces. Raelene Elam totaled 13 points on five kills, four blocks and a team-best four aces.

Tia Edwards had five kills, adding three blocks and an ace for nine points, while MaKenzie Franklin also scored nine points with seven kills, a block and an ace. Setter Kaleo Kanahele Maclay contributed eight points on five kills, a block and a pair of aces. Outside hitter Emma Schieck added five kills.

vs. FRANCE

The U.S. controlled the first half of the opening set, taking a 16-9 lead. Back-to-back aces completed a 7-3 France run that cut the lead to three points, but the U.S. scored six of the final seven points, culminating with a Dosty ace.

Setter Gia Cruz, making her 2025 debut with the team, served the U.S. to a 7-0 lead in the second set. Outside hitter Courtney Baker recorded a kill and consecutive aces to put the U.S. ahead 11-2. From there, France only scored three points the rest of the set.

Two aces in a row by setter Annie Flood gave the U.S. a 5-1 lead in the third set, but France used a 9-4 run to take a 10-9 lead. After a service error evened the score, Franklin served for 11 consecutive points, including a stretch of five serves in a row that France did not return over the net. Not even a moment of levity when the French coach gave the line judge a hug or a timeout stopped the run.

Roster

No  Name (Position, Height, Hometown)
2 Bethany Zummo (L, 5-3, Dublin, Calif.)
8 Whitney Dosty (OH/OPP, 6-3, Tucson, Ariz.)
9 Tia Edwards (OH/MB, 5-7, Skiatook, Okla.)
10 Kari Ortiz (L, 5-6, Washington, D.C.)
12 Emma Schieck (OH, 5-7, Statesville, N.C.)
13 Gia Cruz (S, 5-5, San Antonio, Texas)
14 Kaleo Kanahele Maclay (S, 5-6, Oklahoma City, Okla.)
15 Kendra Hall (5-7, Westfield, Ind.)
16 Nicky Nieves (MB/OH, 5-10, Kissimmee, Fla.)
17 Jessie West (OH, 5-8, Edmond, Okla.)
18 Courtney Baker (OH, 5-9, Crofton, Ky.)
21 Annie Flood (S, 5-7, Salem, Ore.)
22 MaKenzie Franklin (OH, 6-0, Red Wing, Minn., North Country)
24 Raelene Elam (OH, 6-1, St. George, Utah, Northern California)

Head Coach: Bill Hamiter
Assistant Coach: Grace Campbell
Performance Analyst: Jeff Hicks
Athletic Trainer: Samantha Carter
Mental Performance Coach: Brooke Lamphere
Strength and Conditioning/Physical Therapist: Bobby Moore
Dietitian: Jacque Scaramella

Schedule

July 4
USA def. Italy, 3-1 (23-25, 25-22, 25-23, 25-22)
USA def. France, 3-0 (25-17, 25-5, 25-14)

July 5
USA vs Netherlands, 1:45 a.m.
USA vs Canada, 5:15 a.m.

July 6
Playoff matches

Started in the Baby Boomer generation, the Santa Barbara Open men’s and women’s beach volleyball tournaments will have a feeling of nostalgia when competition begins on Sunday at East Beach.

Regarded as one of the most popular tournaments on the Southern California parks and rec circuit of opens in the 60s, 70s and 80s, this year’s 75th edition of the men’s event and 72nd for the women will have an expanded field that includes past champions, former local high school and college standouts and several current college women’s players that played in the NCAA tournament.

“This weekend’s event will be one of the largest draws in quite a while with 30 teams for the women and 30 for the men,” said tournament director and beach volleyball Hall of Famer Dane Selznick of the California Beach Volleyball Association. He noted that his mother, now 91, played in the first Santa Barbara Open for women in 1953 and placed fifth.

The men’s competition was first held in 1950.  Hall of Famer Gene Selznick (Dane’s father) is the all-time winner with nine titles. For the women, Hall of Fame player and coach Kathy Gregory won seven open titles at East Beach.

The tournament, which has a $2,000 prize pool in each gender, is part of Santa Barbara’s annual Semana Nautica Sports Festival.

The top-seeded teams are Gianna Guinasso/Taylor Stover for the women and David Updegrove/Zac Pittard for the men. Both pairs have local ties — Stover is a coach at Providence High School, while Pittard played indoor volleyball at SBCC.

Guinasso/Stover have played together in seven events this year, posting three third places, three fifths and a ninth. They came in third in their most recent tournament at Santa Monica Ocean Park.

Updegrove and Pittard are the No. 2 and 3 players on the CBVA ranking of “AAA” men’s players. Updegrove won a tournament in Santa Cruz, and Pittard captured a title in Ocean Beach in San Diego.

Defending women’s champion Clara Stowell of Stanford is back and seeded third with Cal Poly’s Erin Inskeep. Stowell won last year with local and Stanford teammate Taylor Wilson.

Local beach volleyball will be well represented on Sunday.

On the women’s side, San Marcos High senior Cora Loomer and partner Kara Namimatsu, a senior at Redondo Union, are the No. 2 seed. They’re coming off a fifth-place finish at the Mission Beach Open in San Diego. The pair earned their AAA rating by winning the Newland Beach AA in Huntington Beach.

Namimatsu helped Redondo Union clinch the CIF-SS Division 1 team title in the spring. She and her partner won the deciding match for a 3-2 triumph over rival Mira Costa.

Also among the top-10 seeds are local players Katie Spieler, Portia Sherman and Jessyca Beksa. Spieler, a Dos Pueblos alum, is playing with her cousin Torrey Van Winden. Seeded fifth, the pair won back-to-back Santa Barbara titles in 2014-15 and last year went on an incredible run, finishing seventh at the prestigious AVP Manhattan Beach Open.

Sherman, a DP alum who is seeded sixth with Stanford’s Logan Tusher, is coming off a fantastic college season at Cal. She and Emma Donley set the school record for wins at the No. 1 position and total wins for a season with 28, helping the Golden Bears advance to the NCAA Tournament. They were named American Volleyball Coaches Association All-Americans.

After the college season, the Sherman/Donley represented Team USA and won an international tournament, capturing the Under-23 NORCECA Continental Tour event in the Dominican Republic with a perfect 5-0 record. 

Sherman/Tusher were runners-up at the 2023 Santa Barbara Open.

The No. 8 seed is Santa Barbara High alum Jessyca Beksa and Jacqueline DiSanto. The pair played together in last year’s tournament and placed 16th after finishing second at an open at San Diego’s Ocean Beach.

Other local teams include Emma Zuffelato/Faith Bartlett, Leah Russell/Morgan Gatzlaff, Hannah Rogers/Susie Lloyd, Evyn Miller/Wynter Thorne-Thomsen, Anastasia Kunz/Adlee Van Winden, sisters Ellie Gamberdella/Josie Gamberdella, Jayden Jones/Krystal Vander Ark, Danica Minnich/Grace Higgins and Sam Fallon/Leah Curtin.

Local men’s teams seeded in the top-10 include Jordon Dyer/Kirill Rudenko at No. 5, former champion Ric Cervantes and Jonah Seif at No. 8 and Dylan Foreman/Troy Fitzgerald in the 10 spot. Cervantes won with Will Rottman in 2023 and finished third in 2022 with Seif.

Ryan Feller, last year’s champion, is seeded 15th with new partner Adam Epstein.

Also competing are Nate Rogers of Santa Ynez and former high school teammate Andrew Nielsen; Dos Pueblos beach coach Nate Holmes with Rowan Peake; former San Marcos teammates Luke Walker and Hansen Streeter; Shane Cervantes with Mike Stewart (last year’s runner-up); San Marcos alum Jack Wilson with Luke Powers; Daniel Brown/Ben Brown; Ziggy Peake/Matt Benko; Mikey Denver/Cameron Earls.

Games will be played on eight courts in front of the Bath House and four East Beach courts. Pool play begins at 9 a.m., followed by single-elimination playoffs.

Starting 5 July and continuing through August, three designated sections of the city will transform into “Paris Plages”—urban swimming sites complete with sandy beaches, bungalows, and palm trees. One is located near Notre Dame Cathedral, another close to the Eiffel Tower, and the third in eastern Paris.

Later this month, Europe’s open water elite will join the public in diving into the Seine, as the third leg of the European Open Water Swimming Cup takes place in the historic river. For French Swimming Federation (FFN) President Gilles Sezionale, the re-opening of the Seine to swimming—and holding a European Cup event—marks a significant milestone.

“Hosting a European Open Water Swimming Cup on the Seine is a powerful symbol for Paris, for France, and for aquatic sport. It reflects years of commitment to restoring the river’s water quality, a key legacy objective of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The return of competitive and public swimming to the heart of the capital reconnects Parisians with a tradition that goes back centuries—and signals a new chapter for open water swimming in urban environments.”

Bringing swimming back to the heart of Paris—along the river often described as the most romantic in the world—required a massive undertaking. A 1.4 billion euro cleanup project was launched to bring the Seine up to European water quality standards and make this ambitious Olympic legacy initiative a reality.

To make the most of the summer season at Paris’ new swimming spots—including the Parc Rives de Seine, the Bassin de la Villette, and the Canal Saint-Martin—you can find out more here. 

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WASHINGTON STATE FOOTBALL coach Jimmy Rogers will have a $4.5 million “benefits pool” in the fiscal year that began Tuesday to deploy across his roster as part of the revenue-sharing provisions triggered across college sports by the settlement in the House v NCAA case, WSU athletic director Anne McCoy told reporters Thursday.

Benefits pool money can be used for such things as scholarships, stipends and direct payments relative to NIL. McCoy didn’t have the benefits pool allocations for other sports at WSU.

Calculations per sport were based on five-year averages for scholarship costs, percentage of in-state to out-of-state athletes, and more, said McCoy during a Zoom media gatherin mostly focused on the school’s elimination of much of the track and field program. “And so each sport was given a particular pool based on that … it’s been a pretty fluid process, quite frankly, which is one of the reasons (each program’s pool amount is) not on the top of my head.”

[See video above as McCoy dives into the reasoning behind cutting portions of track and field]

INSTITUTIONAL NIL AGREEMENTS and conversations, now legal following the House settlement, have begun at WSU, McCoy said. But they are in some cases separate from the benefit pools. McCoy also said they will be kept under wraps. 

“We started issuing institutional NIL agreements this week once we were allowed to after the first of July,” McCoy said. “Those types of agreements or dollar amounts will be separate from the benefits pools in some cases. And just for competitive reasons, we’re not really disclosing that or discussing it, as you’re probably hearing fairly consistently amongst a lot of Division I programs.

“But $4.5 million was the benefits pool that football had to work with for scholarships, for Alston if they chose to do anything, revenue sharing or within that. But true institutional NIL agreements that we’re executing, those will be separate and not something that will be discussed relative to a dollar amount.”

WASHINGTON STATE’S APPAREL CONTRACT for its various athletic teams — held by Nike for the last 15 years — is open but McCoy declined to offer an update on where WSU stands. However, she said news would be coming soon.

WSU and Nike signed a 10-year extension in 2015 that paid WSU $2.3 million per year.

Nike is the dominant apparel provider in college athletics, though Adidas and Under Armour are prominent and could be in the bidding with WSU. One would presume a WSU renewal with Nike given the proximity to the start of the football season and the fact no announcement has been made.

Other topics McCoy addressed:

• WSU has not explored selling advertising on jerseys the way LSU is to help pay for revenue sharing but McCoy said that it’s not something that has been ruled out.
• She is hoping guardrails will go into effect to prevent the possibility of lowering thresholds for the number of sports a college needs, thus putting Olympic sports at risk.
• She didn’t have an update on more lodging (camping sites?) opportunities in Pullman on game weekends but said she expects to “soon.”
• Funding for the men’s basketball team’s upcoming trip to Europe is being funded by private donations.

Related: WSU’s Anne McCoy says gutting of track and field not related to cost savings

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