Beach volleyball pays for FSU-bound sisters
Gardens siblings learned new skills from outdoor game.
PALM BEACH GARDENS — The traffic might be terrible in Southern California, but the beach volleyball is as good as it gets.
Palm Beach Gardens sisters Cassie and Maddie Anderson spent six months in Huntington Beach, Calif., last year, training with professional coaches and playing tournaments throughout the state.
The longtime volleyball standouts, who helped lead Lake Worth Christian to the Class 2A state title in 2015 and now play at Palm Beach Gardens, took a break from their indoor careers to improve their beach game and draw interest from colleges.
California was the perfect place to get started.
“The goal was to get better in beach, because we’re going to college for beach volleyball,” said Cassie Anderson, 17, who plays libero and right side for the Gators. “That is our college goal, so that’s why we traveled to California to train for six months.”
“All the competition is in California, especially for beach,” added Maddie Anderson, 15, a middle/outside hitter.
The Anderson sisters, who are longtime home-schooled students — both plan to graduate in the spring — traveled to California last June and trained until December.
Their mom, Marianne, lived with them in a rented house while the girls maintained a strict schedule of classwork, training and tournaments.
The experience was a positive one for the sisters, who since have committed to FSU for beach volleyball.
“It helped me in the game,” Cassie Anderson said. “I learned new skills. I met new people, and I got to play with new partners. I learned how to play with people who aren’t like my sister, because I’m used to playing with her. I made a lot of new friends.”
The sisters returned to Florida late last year and immediately jumped into the club indoor volleyball season.
Their club coach, Joy VanDyke, also coaches the Palm Beach Gardens girls volleyball team, and welcomed the sisters back to the high school game.
“I think it’s great for them to be able to come back and play indoor,” said VanDyke, whose top-ranked Gators host No. 2 West Boca Raton tonight.
“There’s no circuit for high school beach volleyball. This is their only way to shine in their high school volleyball career.”
Maddie Anderson said she will miss the high school game once the Gators play their final match this fall. She will continue to play club volleyball, and also will fine-tune her beach game in preparation for entering FSU in the fall of 2019. Cassie will start next year. Both have big goals.
“I’m getting ready for college,” Maddie Anderson said. “It’s going to be a big transition, especially since I’ll be starting at 17, and I’ll be a young 17. The goal is to get better, and get to the level of play that you have to in the Olympics.”
The sisters are circling the Paris Olympics in 2024 and the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 on their calendars. International competition is a goal for both.
“I want to make it to the beach volleyball Olympics, and hopefully FSU will help me with that,” Cassie said.