Conway – The Central Arkansas Beach Bears open the 2018 later today at the Blazer Beach Duals looking to build upon a strong inaugural season.

While Central Arkansas' first season at the beach was an undeniable success, with the Beach Bears compiling a 14-3 record and holding their own with numerous ranked teams, head coach Jeni Jones Chatman will welcome an expended roster that features seven players who will be making their debut in UCA's Purple and Grey.

"Megan Nash and Haley Tippett are back in our ones," said Chatman, of the pair that went 10-2 a season ago. "Both are already better than they were last year, not only individually, but as a pair as well. But we've also got a lot of new faces. Colene Hamilton has done a great job of showing what she can do, her level of maturity, and her athleticism, and we've brought in some transfers in Jessica Martinez and Shelby Holmes that have done a really nice job so far. This is Shelbi's first time playing beach, so the learning curve has been quite steep, whereas for Jessica it's been more fine-tuning, but both of them have done a good job with their pairs and with our system and training."

The biggest question for Chatman and assistants Marissa Collins and Autumn Erickson lies in the middle of the lineup, where Central Arkansas will look to fill the number three slot, occupied last season by Heather Schnars and Kate Elman, who tallied a 15-2 record.

"Heather and Kate brought such a high level of play last season," said Chatman. "And it wasn't just on the attacking level with Heather, but defensively they both covered a lot of court and they were so consistent, so they're hard to replace. Right now were going back and forth with a few pairs as far as who is going to be two, three, and four. We're looking at different options based on what we're seeing in practice and our scrimmage. With the NCAA rule on moving up or down, we might start one way, but make some changes after seeing it live."

While Central Arkansas entered last season with a limited amount of beach volleyball experience, the Beach Bears enter the 2018 campaign as a seasoned squad, with nine of the 14 players on the roster having at least one season of collegiate beach experience, a factor which Chatman expects to make an impact this year.

"We've got so much more beach volleyball IQ this season," said Chatman, before discussing the addition of UCA volleyball alum Erickson to her staff. "And if you couple that with the addition of Autumn, it's great. Autumn has played the game at such a high level and is still playing competitively, and I think any time you can add someone with her experience and ability to play at a high level is really invaluable. She's brought so much to our program that we were lacking last year. From the time she started to now, even in that short amount of time, has been so much fun to watch because there has been so much growth and consistency."

The Beach Bears, who opened the season receiving votes in the AVCA Coaches poll, hit the court this weekend at the Blazer Beach Duals, hosted by UAB. UCA will take on Mercer at noon on Friday and ULM at 4:00 PM that afternoon, before closing out the weekend at noon on Saturday against Austin Peay. Central Arkansas will then return home to battle Houston Baptist and Ottawa University on Saturday, March 24^th, in the first of two events hosted in Conway this season.

"We had one tournament last year, and it was really fun, but to see the crowd that we got this year for our Purple and Gray scrimmage and to see the excitement that our players have for playing at home is really exciting," said Chatman. "We're looking forward to getting to finally compete this weekend and we're excited to get things going on what we hope will be a really successful season."