University of Southern California Women's Beach Volleyball

DAIN BLANTON—an Olympic gold-medalist and the 2024 AVCA National Coach of the Year—is in his sixth season (2024-25) as head coach of the USC beach volleyball program. Blanton has led the Women of Troy to NCAA championships in each of the last four seasons (2021, ’22, ’23, ’24) and made USC the first team ever to capture four straight titles in the sport and the first women’s program at USC to win four consecutive national crowns. He also guided the Trojans to two Pac-12 championships; the first in 2022 and a second in 2024, which was the final Pac-12 title awarded. Including the shortened 2020 season—his first as a collegiate head coach—Blanton holds a remarkable 142-20 (.877) overall record as USC’s head coach. His record includes a 26-5 mark in postseason duals and an incredible 17-0 record in the NCAA championship tournament. Blanton was inducted into the USA Volleyball Hall of Fame as an All-Time Great Beach Athlete in 2024. He is also a member of the CBVA Hall of Fame as a part of the Class of 2016 and was inducted into the Southern California Indoor Volleyball Hall of Fame in 2020. Blanton is also a member of the Pepperdine Athletics Hall of Fame’s class of 2008. Blanton’s 2024 Trojans finished the season 37-5 and claimed both the Pac-12 and NCAA championships. The team produced a 16-match win streak during the season and finished with six wins in a row, which included five 3-0 sweeps to go undefeated at the NCAA championship. In 2023, USC completed a 32-5 season with a

EMILY BOWMAN is in her second season (2024-25) as an assistant coach for the Women of Troy. In her first season as a full-time assistant, Bowman helped USC capture an unprecedented fourth consecutive NCAA championship; making the Women of Troy the first team ever to win four straight titles in the sport and the first USC women’s team ever to win four consecutive national titles. She also helped lead the Trojans to the 2024 Pac-12 championship, the last title awarded by the conference. Bowman previously served as the Trojans’ volunteer assistant coach during the 2023 season and helped the Women of Troy capture a third consecutive NCAA championship. Following the 2023 season, Bowman worked as a full-time inside sales representative for the Major League’s Los Angeles Angels. She also has experience as the head indoor volleyball coach for the Surfside Volleyball Club’s 12s and was the head indoor volleyball coach for the freshman team at Bishop Montgomery High School. As a collegiate athlete Bowman joined the Trojans for her graduate year and helped USC capture the second of back-to-back NCAA championships in 2022; the program’s fifth national title. During the season, she teamed with Megan Kraft, Shannon Scully, and Caroline Schafer. Prior to USC, Bowman was a student-athlete at CSU Bakersfield where she was a two-time All-Big West honorable mention with the Roadrunners. She received Academic All-Big West Honors as a sophomore and junior and was named to the All-Big West second

GUSTAVO ROCHA is in his eighth season (2024-25) with the USC beach volleyball program, his second as the Trojans’ associate head coach. He previously served as the team’s assistant coach for six years (2018-23). Rocha helped the Women of Troy capture four consecutive NCAA championships from 2021 to 2024; the program’s fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh national titles. He also helped lead the Trojans to three Pac-12 Championships (2019, ’22, ‘24) and an NCAA runner-up finish in 2019. With Rocha on staff, the Trojans became the first team in the history of the sport to win four straight championships and were the first USC women’s team ever to capture four consecutive national titles. Following USC’s third straight national championship in 2023, Rocha was chosen as the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) National Assistant Coach of the Year. Rocha also serves as co-head coach for Team USA’s pair of USC alumnae and All-Americans Sara Hughes and Kelly Cheng (formerly Claes). He helped coach the duo to gold medals at the 2023 World Championship in Tlaxcala, Mexico, and served as the pair’s co-head coach at the 2024 Paris Games where they finished in a fifth-place tie after advancing to the quarterfinal round. In the summer of 2021, Rocha served as the first-ever head coach of the Latvian women’s beach volleyball national team and coached four-time USC All-American Tina Graudina and partner Anastasija Kravcenoka (Samoilova) to a fourth-place finish at the Tokyo Olympic G