The Ohio State co-ed club team pictured at the awards presentation following the SSOVA tournament Feb. 25 in Florida. Credit: Zeynep Yildiz
Ohio State’s football and basketball teams often dominate the conversation, but Ohio State’s Beach Volleyball club is dominating on the sand.
Less than two years after its creation, the team went from newly established to national champions.
Grace Klima, who created the club in the fall of 2022 and has served as its president since, started the club for women, but it only took off from there.
“Last year was our first year. I decided to make it just a women’s program, I kind of felt like that would be like the easiest way to start a club — a little bit smaller and then you have the ability to expand,” Klima said.
After the club’s first season, Klima recognized an opportunity for expansion, taking the club from six women to 18 coed players.
With a bigger and more diverse club in 2023, Klima also hoped to challenge the group with expanded competition and objectives. After talking with members of the Miami University (OH) club, she knew the Sunshine State Outdoor Volleyball Association’s Beach Volleyball Tournament in Florida Feb. 24 and 25 would be a great challenge. Here, they could compete for a national championship.
Because they were just a club team, and a newly formed one, there was a lot of work needed just to get to Florida, let alone compete in the tournament, Klima said.
“This was the goal we had all season. So we worked really hard to figure out partners and improve on our skills,” Klima said. “And we did so much fundraising so that we would be able to go. I didn’t [initially] think we were going to be able to go this year.”
Miraculously, the club was able to make it to Florida, a massive victory in itself. When it arrived, the members were shocked to see the sheer size of some of the opposing clubs, Klima said. Schools like Florida, Florida State, Miami and North Carolina brought massive teams, some with upwards of 100 people.
Quickly, Klima said she and the club settled into the underdog role. Along with having a smaller team, the club team also faced extreme winds in Florida, which played a large role in beach volleyball.
Regardless of the difficulties they faced, on the coed day of the tournament, Klima’s club truly hit its stride. Because the tournament was separated into different divisions, they were split into separate courts, and the final result would be determined by the cumulative effort across all of the matches.
Klima and her partner, Aiden Novotny, won the Double-A division of the tournament. While it had not always been a realistic expectation, at this point the club realized that it had a legitimate chance to win the coed tournament.
The tournament was so competitive that Ohio State’s club ended up tying with Florida State, and the coed national championship would be determined by whichever club had the most second-place finishes. Thanks to a second-place performance by Zeynep Yildiz and Drew Thomas, the club was crowned coed national champions Feb. 25, less than two years after its creation.
Klima said she will graduate after the 2024 fall semester and will step down as president, passing the position to her teammate Jarod Matronia.
Following the national championship, Matronia said the club is on an upward trajectory and looking to expand even further in the future.
“With us becoming an official Rec Sports club through the university, this will provide us with many more opportunities for growth and to onboard more athletes. We hope to make an appearance and another statement in the 2025 nationals,” Matronia said.
For now, the club will take some time to relish in the accomplishments of this past season. The team had little idea of what would unfold in Florida. Several members had said they wanted to win the entire tournament, but only jokingly, Klima said. Now, this dream has become a reality. For Klima, the president and founder, this reality was surreal.
“I started crying,” Klima said.“We had gone from not being well organized last year, just trying our best, to this. I was proud of myself. I was proud of my team. I was proud of my coaches.”
