The Viral Volley Podcast

Viral Volley Podcast, 2025 Big West Women's Volleyball Championship Interview: Long Beach St.

Long Beach St.'s Elise Agi and Madi Maxwell discuss the 2025 season and their path to the 2025 Hawaiian Islands presents the Outrigger Big West Women's Volleyball Championship.

Episode 287, College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, Malia Gementera and Taylor Hagenah

Episode 287 features 2025 AVCA Fall Pairs Champions from Long Beach St., Malia Gementera and Taylor Hagenah. The San Diego County products have been the work-horses for the Beach and have been almost unstoppable their entire first three years at Long Beach St.!

We discuss the start of their partnership-- proof that nobody can "ghost" Taylor-- even Malia, their natural success together, winning outside of collegiate beach ball and their road to the 2025 AVCA Pairs Championship! 

Episode 286, CVW Men's Top 20: The "Since May" Recap, 11-03-2025

The "Salty Guys" of College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20 are BACK! Heaps of news has come about since the last ball drop in the Natty match in May so the band got together to talk about SOME (yes, we've got to do a part 2) of the news that has hit D1-2 Men's Volleyball!

00:00:00 Introduction

00:01:30 AVCA Hall of Famer: Alan Knipe, Long Beach St.

00:06:00 2025 NCAA D1-2 Coaching Changes

00:34:20 NCAA Tournament Expansion

00:46:00 MPSF & Big West Previews: Others in the Making?

Episode 285, College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20: John Hawks, USA Men's U21 Head Coach, 9-9-25

This summer the USA Men’s U21 team had an extremely talent roster that literally could have run far deeper than the 24 athletes who made the “official” roster– and it was composed of some recently graduated and a lot of current NCAA D1-2 players! What’s that mean you ask? We’ve got a young crew getting ready to take on the world as potential senior national and Olympic team players!

In this episode, Head Coach of the history-making USA Men’s U21 team jumps on College Volleyball Weekly Men’s Top 20 to talk about this talented group of guys that he, Donan Cruz, Matt Pollock and Donovan Martinez had the honor of training through the Men’s U21 World Championship in China and receiving the USA’s first-ever medal in the U21 World Championship!

From there, we discuss the expansion of the NCAA Men’s D1-2 Men’s Volleyball Championship to12 teams– which we are all EXCITED FOR! John also takes time to discuss the importance of the Championship’s growth, as well as the recent news that in the last 10 years boys’ participation has grown over 76%!

We close out the episode talking about John’s UCLA team, the expansion of the MPSF and what competition could look likein 2026!

Episode 284, College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, Anhelina Khmil, TCU/Ukraine, 07-24-25

Big 12 standout Anhlina Khmil of the 2025 NCAA Collegiate Beach National Championship team, TCU jumps onto CVW Beach Top 20 to discuss her happenstance beginnings in indoor volleyball, then making her way over to beach. 

She also shares about her home and family as Ukraine was being attacked by Russia during the time she was making decisions about competing in Beach Volleyball and attending TCU.

From there we recap her career during her Freshman through Junior years, TCU’s uprising and the continued improvement of her play resulting in groundbreaking performances for Lina year-after-year!

 

We then focus on 2025– where Lina and her history-making team won the National Championship in Gulf Shores. She shares how the dual points were dropping and how she was running to all the courts to root her teammates on, then finally celebrating with “The Spaniards,” Dani Alvarez & Tania Moreno as they claimed the “Championship Clinching” dual-winning point!

We move into what she’s been doing this summer on the Beach World Pro Tour, CEV’s and what we should expect to see with the 2026 Sandy Frog team with their player and coach additions!

Thanks for watching and/or listening to College Volleyball Weekly Beach Top 20, Viral Volley Podcast!

Episode 283, Viral Volley Podcast, Geena Urango & Avery Jackson, 7/9/25

First episode for the summer after some time off we jump into the AVP Contender Series event, the Denver Open! 

Heading into the Rockies is always a special event at The Island facility where we would find an unlikely tandem teaming up for this event—Stanford Beach Freshman All-MPSF honoree Avery Jackson, playing her 1st AVP event with former USC standout and long-time AVP star Geena Urango—playing her 86th AVP event! The 2025 Denver Open Champions did not face any resistance until the final—where we saw one of the top comebacks in the game to win the $10,000 and automatic berth into the main draw at the Manhattan Beach Open. See/listen what Geena & Avery had to say about competing this last weekend!

Thanks for listening in! Be sure to support these athletes by following the on social and supporting their sponsors and programs!

Episode 282, College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20 - 2025 Finale 5-21-25

In this final 2025 episode of College Volleyball Weekly Men's Top 20, we briefly recap the 2025 NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship match, then jump into some of the top news stories of the 2025 season. The topics discuss include "The Moni Effect," Nickie Sanlin, Head Coach at McKendree, the USA Volleyball changes in leadership and National Teams, the explosion of digital content on the Men's D1-2 side, the sudden discontinuation of GCU Men's Volleyball and the impacts, as well as what we learned/saw and/or bold predictions for 2026!

 

We're all extremely thankful for your listening and watching in 2025! We'll hit a few topics this summer as they arise! Stay tuned!

Episode 281, College Volleyball Weekly, Men's Top 20, NCAA Championship Episode, 5-12-25

It's NCAA Championship Day to see who becomes the 2025 National Champion! Will it be the "Moni Effect" of No. 1 Long Beach St. claim the hardware, or will No. 3 UCLA "Three-Peat?" Before we discuss that we discuss some of the news items from this last week, the semis and THEN items related to tonight's Championship on ESPN2 at 4:00pm PT/7:00pm ET.

Episode 280, College Volleyball Weekly, Men's Top 20: NCAA Championship Episode 5-7-25

The NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship has begun and we are down to the quarterfinals with the top teams ready to go into battle. The CVW Coaches' Panel break down who we should watch for, what players will/can go big with stellar performances. 

The panel attempts to make their NCAA predictions but to be honest, most of the pale was hesitant!

All this with a few tangents here and there en route to a few laughs as well!

Episode 279, CVW and CollegeBeachVB.com Collab - NCAA Collegiate Beach Weekend 05-06-25

CollegeBeachVB.com's (and UCLA Alumna) Jaden Whitmarsh jumps on the show this week to talk about the recently finished 2025 NCAA Beach National Championship inh Gulf Shores, AL. There were plenty of BIG and clutch performances along with a few unexpected results mixed in. All in all, never-before crowned champion is going to emerge with the NC hardware.