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SAN FRANCISCO - Top-ranked and Pac-12 Champion UCLA received its first-ever No. 1 overall seed in the 2018 National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship and is looking to claim the its first-ever national title. Among the teams standing in the way is two-time defending national champion USC, the No. 5 seed overall in the eight-team field. The beach volleyball national championship will be competed in Gulf Shores, Ala., May 4-6.

Also in the field are No. 2-seed Pepperdine, No. 3-seed Hawai’i, No. 4-seed Florida State, No. 6-seed South Carolina, No. 7-seed LSU and No. 8-seed Florida International.

The event will be televised live by ESPN networks, with ESPNU providing live coverage on Friday, May 4 starting at 10 a.m. ET. Live coverage continues Saturday, May 5 on ESPN2, starting at 2 p.m. ET and Sunday, May 6 at 11:30 a.m. on ESPN2. The championship dual airs on ESPN on Sunday, May 6, at 2 p.m. ET. Additionally, live streaming coverage of every court throughout the tournament will be available on ESPN3.

The Bruins are coming off winning their first Conference crown in the three-year history of the Pac-12 Beach Volleyball Championship. UCLA went 4-0 in the championship to claim the crown in a championship that featured the strongest field in the history of the event with more than half the field being ranked in the top 20 in the nation (five ranked teams in total). UCLA unseated two-time champion USC, 3-1, in the final dual. UCLA takes its program-record 30-dual win streak and 35 wins into the national championship where it looks to claim its first NCAA title in the sport. The Bruins open again FIU (22-10) in the first round of the double-elimination tournament.

USC (25-12) is the only team to have won the national collegiate championship in beach volleyball, winning the first two events in 2016 and 2017. The Trojans came in second place at the Pac-12 Championship and have been ranked in the top five in the nation all season. All but one of their team losses have come to teams that have earned bids to this week’s event. USC faces Florida State (30-6) in the first round, a rematch of a March 11 clash which the Trojans won, 3-2.

Megan and Nicole McNamara were named the Pac-12 Pair of the Year, as voted on by the Pac-12 coaches. The coaches also selected Nicole the Pac-12 Player of the Year, USC’s Tina Graudina the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and UCLA head coach Stein Metzger the Pac-12 Coach of the Year. It is the second-consecutive year Metzger receives the honor.