BRADENTON, Fla.- The Ave Maria University beach volleyball team came up short in their quest to sweep The Sun Conference championships, finishing second in the 2024 SUN Tournament. The Gyrenes won their first three matches of the weekend to get to the finals, but could not knock off second-seeded Webber for the second time this season, as the Warriors won the title with a 3-1 win in the final.

The Gyrenes made quick work of eighth-seeded St. Andrews in the opening game of the tournament, cruising to a 3-0 win - all matches were played to clinch, as opposed to playing all five matches in their entirety. AMU's second team of Lily Grasso and Reina Thomas won 21-13, 21-17, while the fourth team of Ryan Getz and Deanna Barrett claimed a 22-20, 21-15 win. The AMU win was clinched by Ines Lopes and Alayna Metherd, who won their match by a 21-13, 21-10 score.

AMU's second match on Friday, against Loyola, came down to the wire, with all five matches needed to decide a winner. In the first set of matches, the Wolfpack won at the fourth flight, while Grasso and Thomas showed why they were the SUN's Pair of the Year with a 21-18, 23-25, 15-12 win. AMU needed two wins in the second set of matches, and got them at the first - Lopes and Metherd won 21-14, 21-16 - and third - a 16-21, 21-17, 15-11 win from Anna Howard and Hannah Jones - flights.

The two wins on Friday got Ave Maria into the semifinals against William Carey, where the Gyrenes regained their dominance with a 3-0 victory over the Crusaders. The second and fourth duos won again, as they did against St. Andrews, while this time the clinching point was provided by Jones and Howard, who swept their match, 21-18, 21-13.

Unfortunately for the Gyrenes, they did not find the same success against No. 7 Webber. The lone Gyrene pair to win, unsurprisingly, was Thomas and Grasso, who finished off a 4-0 tournament with a 21-18, 21-19 victory.

Ave Maria now waits to see if the Gyrenes will earn an at-large bid to 2024 NAIA Women's Beach Volleyball Invitational. The Gyrenes are likely to be one of the teams in consideration for a bid as one of the highest-ranked non conference champions in the most recent NAIA Coaches' Poll. The field for the invitational, which will be played April 25-27 in Greeneville, Tennessee, will be announced on Monday, April 15 by the NAIA national office.