Court 4: Jess Lansman and Sydney Moore

They were playing in front of a packed LSU Beach Volleyball Stadium on the last night of February in 2020 on Court 2 against No. 1 UCLA. Two Midwesterners playing beach volleyball for an LSU team ranked No. 2 in the country and they had the opportunity to clinch a monumental win for the program - one that would undoubtedly seal LSU's first ever No. 1 beach ranking.

How unlikely?

It was the seventh year of the program in a state where bayous are more plentiful than beaches. It was two girls, one a graduate transfer from Iowa State and the other a freshman from Pickerington, Ohio, playing their first seasons of beach volleyball at the collegiate level. It was facing a team that grew up playing…