- No. 7 SLCC volleyball went 3-1 at the Battle at the Beach in Fort Myers, Florida: a sweep of Polk State, a four-set upset of host No. 2 Florida Southwestern, a five-set loss to Daytona State and a four-set win over Eastern Florida State.
- SLCC Volleyball connect back to Salt Lake Community College and the wider volleyball picture.
- The story is backed by 8 sources and a visible last-verified date.
August 24, 2026
September 24, 2026
4 min / 820 words
8 official links
Salt Lake Community College volleyball opened its 2026 season at the Battle at the Beach in Fort Myers, Florida, and came home 3-1. The seventh-ranked Bruins swept Polk State College, upset the host, No. 2 Florida Southwestern State, in four sets, lost a five-set match to Daytona State College and closed the tournament by beating Eastern Florida State College in four, according to SLCC's official recaps of August 22 and 24.
The Florida Southwestern win was the headline. A team ranked seventh in the NJCAA Division I preseason poll beat the team ranked second, on its own floor, in the first week of the season.
Day one: a sweep and an upset
SLCC never trailed against Polk State on Friday, August 21, winning 25-17, 25-12, 25-11. Setter Swayzee Mason had 23 assists and Angelina Murase nine kills.
The second match started badly. Florida Southwestern won the first set 25-16. The Bruins then took the next three, 26-24, 25-19 and 25-23. Murase finished with a match-high 19 kills and Mason with 30 assists. SLCC hit .309 as a team and held Florida Southwestern to .192, and the Bruins had 15 kills in the second set alone.
The comeback turned on the second set, where SLCC had 15 kills and hit .387, according to the recap. Rylee Parkinson, Lana Hollway and Mason each added seven kills against Florida Southwestern, so the Bruins finished the first day 2-0 with the tournament host beaten.
Day two: a five-set loss, then a four-set win
Daytona State won the first two sets of Saturday's opener by close margins, according to SLCC's recap. SLCC answered by taking the third set 26-24 and the fourth 25-10, and Daytona State won the fifth 16-14. Rylee Parkinson had a match-high 20 kills and Murase 19. Mason and Teagan Sabillon combined for 48 assists, and libero Daxlyn Robinson led with 13 digs.
The Bruins recovered the same day against Eastern Florida State. They won the first set 25-13 while hitting .542, dropped the second 25-23, and won the third 25-11 and the fourth 25-14. Parkinson led again with 18 kills. Murase hit .700, with 14 kills on 20 swings, and the two of them combined for 14 service aces. Sara Stancu added seven kills and Sabillon had 28 assists.
A national-tournament program picks up where it left off
The start fits the program's recent record. SLCC finished 2025 at 27-6, according to its November 22, 2025 recap, after winning the Scenic West regular season, the Region 18 championship and a Rocky Mountain District championship. It went to the NJCAA national tournament in Clarksville, Tennessee, as the No. 7 seed and finished seventh by sweeping Snow College in the seventh-place match. The district title came against Central Arizona College, according to SLCC's November 10, 2025 recap.
Cameron Zajer, who led the Bruins in that seventh-place match with eight kills and four aces, is back on the 2026 roster. The setter in that match, Myka Christensen, is now on Utah Valley's 2026 roster, which lists SLCC as her previous school.
The in-state rivalry was part of that run. SLCC played Snow College four times in 2025 and won three, the last of them the seventh-place sweep at nationals, 25-15 in all three sets.
Home opener next: the Crystal "Inn"vitational
The Bruins return to Bruin Arena on the Redwood Campus in Taylorsville for the Crystal "Inn"vitational from August 27 to 29. Missouri State University-West Plains is first on Thursday, August 27, at 4:30 p.m. New Mexico Junior College and Weatherford College follow on Friday, August 28, and Central Arizona College, the team SLCC beat for last year's district title, closes the event on Saturday, August 29.
Key facts:
- Result: SLCC went 3-1 at the Battle at the Beach, Fort Myers, Florida, August 21-22, 2026
- Wins: Polk State 3-0 and No. 2 Florida Southwestern State 3-1 (August 21); Eastern Florida State 3-1 (August 22)
- Loss: Daytona State 3-2 (16-14 in the fifth set), August 22
- Leaders: Angelina Murase 19 kills vs. Florida Southwestern; Rylee Parkinson 20 kills vs. Daytona State and 18 vs. Eastern Florida State; Swayzee Mason 30 assists vs. Florida Southwestern
- Ranking: No. 7, as SLCC's recaps stated it; seventh in the NJCAA Division I preseason poll
- 2025: 27-6; SWAC regular-season, Region 18 and Rocky Mountain District champions; seventh at the NJCAA national tournament
- Home opener: Crystal "Inn"vitational at Bruin Arena, August 27-29, 2026
*Correction, September 24, 2026: An earlier version of this article reported a 2-1 record from three matches. SLCC played four matches in Fort Myers and went 3-1; the win over Eastern Florida State was missing. The earlier version also gave SLCC's 2025 record as 25-4, which was its record before the national tournament; it finished 27-6. It said SLCC had not published individual statistics and described Central Arizona as the team that ended SLCC's district run, when SLCC beat Central Arizona for that title. Those errors have been corrected.*
