'Fueling the fire': Gulf Breeze beach volleyball begins state championship journey

It’s almost a year to the day since the Gulf Breeze beach volleyball team made its first appearance at the state championships in Tallahassee.

The Dolphins, in their inaugural season, took the Panhandle by storm. They had only lost once in the regular season to Bishop Kenny. But Gulf Breeze got its revenge later in the season during the first round of the state tournament.

Then came the toughest opponent in Gulf Breeze’s young history: a match against No. 1 New Smyrna Beach, which was coming off a state championship in 2022. The Dolphins fell 3-0 once the Barracudas won the first three pairings, sealing the match.

Playing in the later pairings, Sydney Sutter and her playing partner, Carmyn Ferguson, didn’t get the opportunity to finish their bout. The Dolphins’ season was over.

“If me and Carmyn finished that match last year, it would’ve felt amazing,” Sutter said. “Since we didn’t, it felt like we should’ve won faster or did something faster.”

And the chance for Gulf Breeze begins on Friday as the Dolphins, ranked No. 1 in the state, begin their state championship journey with a first-round matchup against St. John Lutheran at Florida State University’s Beach Volleyball Courts in Tallahassee.

“Now, it just keeps fueling the fire,” Sutter said of last year’s abrupt ending.

“Since that last whistle last year, I think that’s – at least for me – all it’s been, preparing for this year,” Gulf Breeze head coach Chelsea Kroll said.

‘Stand tall and hold your own’

Gulf Breeze, undefeated on the year, comes in as the top seed, already having defeated Bishop Kenny and New Smyrna Beach in the regular season.

Those wins came early in the season, with a 4-1 win at New Smyrna Beach on March 21 and a pair of wins against Bishop Kenny – once on March 23 and another on April 6 at home. But it’s been 34 days since the Dolphins saw the latter. It’s been 51 days since the Dolphins and Barracudas have squared off.

And with time comes evaluation.

“They know what we’re made of. We know what they’re made of. It gets tougher to beat people more and more especially after they’ve had time to evaluate and revamp their training plans,” Kroll said. “It’s going to be the same teams that we’re seeing, but a different team because they’ve had as much time to prepare as we have.”

While Gulf Breeze hasn’t played any of the other 14 teams headed to Tallahassee for a chance at the state crown, every team is ranked in the top 33, according to the last FHSAA rankings which were released on April 25 and used for state seeding.

At this point of the year, the Dolphins know every other team has talent. But with a No. 1 seed, and a zero posted in the loss column, Gulf Breeze has a target on its back.

“The mental part is really important for us right now, because of the success we’ve had this season. It could be really easy for us to sit back on the success,” Kroll said. “We’re trying really hard to make sure that we’re focused on the goal that we have, that we actually haven’t reached yet.”

“It feels like you have to stand up tall and hold your own because people are going to knock you down every time you get a chance,” said senior Addisyn Tolbert, who’s going to state for the first time. “You’ve got to hold yourself up and be confident in your play and your teammates.”

With it being Gulf Breeze’s second trip to Tallahassee, that calms the nerves a little bit, Kroll said. At state last year, there was a rain delay for Gulf Breeze’s second match – the one against New Smyrna Beach – and the format got changed. Kroll said she thought it caught her team off-guard.

But now the players know what to expect in Tallahassee – where “it’s hot,” and the courts “are in the middle of a field and you’re surrounded by buildings, so there’s no breeze,” Kroll noted. The sand and the actual courts all feel the same, Kroll said, but the atmosphere is totally different.

“This year, going into it, having that experience last year, we know worst case scenario. So I think we’re more prepared this year,” Kroll said. “Since we started training (for the year), it’s been that we’re training for state. We haven’t really done anything different than we have since the beginning of the season, other than maybe noticing a few things we can tighten up or improve on. We’re just trying to fine-tune.”

“There are less nerves because with it being the second time around, I know what to expect. But at the same time it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s state,’” Sutter said. “It’s a little stressful because you don’t want to lose, but you know everyone is giving 110% and that’s all that matters.”

Continuing to raise an already high bar

Something done more than once becomes a tradition, right?

That’s at least how Gulf Breeze is treating trips to the state tournament, now two-for-two in its early history as a program. The players needed to do something last year to start a tradition. They saw the Gulf Breeze girls soccer team, which won state in 2023, go to the tournament with blue-dyed hair.

Other teams, like the boys soccer team this past winter, dyed their hair a bleach-blonde during the district tournament.

So what did the beach volleyball team decide?

Pink hair.

And players donned pink hair – Sutter’s braided – during practices this past week, gearing up for the trek to Tallahassee.

“We decided to go pink with a spur-of-the-moment thing. … Now, it’s a tradition we’re building off of,” Sutter said.

But dyed hair is just one small aspect of what Gulf Breeze is trying to prove at state this weekend. The Dolphins, who also boast a dominant indoor volleyball team during the fall having just won its fifth consecutive district championship, are trying to raise the bar for the program.

A bar that’s already fairly high.

“Girls that are looking to enter the program that maybe chose not to this year, or incoming players that are coming into the high school next season, I think they’re looking at the success of this program and seeing how they can get their foot in the door with it,” Kroll said. “The level of competition is going to get raised every year because of it. These girls have set a really good standard.”

Gulf Breeze is still a fairly young program. It has just two seniors, Tolbert and Riley Bloomburg, with the rest of the roster made up of five juniors and nine sophomores.

And both Sutter and Tolbert are hoping that, no matter how the weekend goes, the Dolphins’ prominent success in a couple years “inspires” younger players to fill the shoes – well, at least the spots on the sand since players aren’t wearing footwear during matches – in the coming years.

“Having a younger group with just two seniors, it shows that it doesn’t matter how old you are. As long as you have that drive and put yourself out there to show what you’ve got, it shows the younger girls you just have to go for it,” Tolbert said. “The level of expectations we have can be met by a younger group.”

Ben Grieco is a sports reporter for the Pensacola News Journal. He can be reached on X (@BenGriecoSports) and via email at BGrieco@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Gulf Breeze beach volleyball beginning state title run in Tallahassee