Panthers Earn No. 10 Seed, Face Grand Canyon in NCAA Opener Wednesday

ATLANTA -- After winning the inaugural Conference USA Championship, the No. 15-ranked Georgia State beach volleyball team received an automatic bid to the 2022 NCAA Championships, and the Panthers earned the No. 10 seed and will open play Wednesday, May 4 against No. 7 seed Grand Canyon at 5 p.m. ET at Gulf Place Beach in Gulf Shores, Ala.

The 16-team field opens with a single-elimination round on Wednesday, with the eight winners advancing to the double-elimination bracket on May 6-8.

Georgia State (26-11) will be making its second appearance in the NCAA Championship and first since 2016. The Panthers also participated in the AVCA National Championships in 2015 before beach volleyball became an official NCAA sport the following year, when GSU played in the first NCAA Championship.

The beach volleyball team is Georgia State's third conference team champion and the fourth GSU program to reach the NCAA Tournament in 2021-22, joining men's basketball (Sun Belt Conference champions/NCAA automatic berth), men's tennis (Sun Belt Conference champions/NCAA automatic berth) and men's soccer (NCAA at-large berth).

Grand Canyon (26-6) is making its first NCAA appearance.

The Panthers blanked No. 13 FIU 3-0 Saturday afternoon in the Conference USA title match to earn the league's automatic bid. Georgia State knocked off top-seeded and No. 10 FAU to advance to the finals.

The win over FIU also gave Georgia State its 26th victory of the season, tying the school record originally set by the Panthers' first NCAA team in 2016.

Now in her ninth season, head coach Beth Van Fleet has led the Panthers to nine straight winning seasons since taking over in the program's second season. The program has posted six straight 20-win campaigns (not counting the abbreviated 2020 season).

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