In mid-March, Audrey Koenig did the math.

She’s good at that. She’s good at most things.

As her partner, Alexis Durish, crossed the Rubicon of 100 wins at Florida State, Koenig took a simple inventory of the remaining matches on the schedule and calculated that, should she and Durish finish the 2026 season undefeated, with a National Championship ring in hand, she’d hit 100 wins exactly herself.

She said this both as a fact and with a hint of mirth.

Going undefeated on court one in NCAA Beach Volleyball is nearly unheard of, to the point that, at the time, only two teams had ever done it: Kelly Claes (now Cheng) and Sara Hughes at USC, and Kristen Nuss (now Cruz) and Taryn Kloth (now Brasher) at LSU. Those four individuals would both go on to qualify for the Olympic Games – Cheng has qualified for both Tokyo and Paris – be ranked No. 1 in the world, and combine for three World Championship medals, including gold for Cheng and Hughes in 2023.

That would be the company they’d join should Koenig and Durish win their final 11 regular season matches, all four Big 12 Championship matches, and not drop a single NCAA Championship match. It was a schedule that included 13 ranked opponents and six in the top 10.

There’s a reason only two of the best beach volleyball teams of this generation have pulled off an undefeated season on court one: It is nearly impossible.

And then Koenig and Durish did it.

They did it so emphatically, that in that final stretch of the season, they only lost two sets, to No. 7 LMU and No. 4 USC. When they sealed up a 21-17, 21-17 win over No. 1 Stanford in the NCAA Championship semifinals, Koenig was within one victory of 100.

She wouldn’t get her shot, as the Cardinal pulled out a pair of three-set victories on courts two and three to punch their ticket into the finals and end Florida State’s season in third. But the accomplishment remains: Audrey Koenig and Alexis Durish are just the third team in NCAA Beach Volleyball history to finish a season undefeated on court one.

For that, they are our inaugural Slunks College Players of the Year.

How difficult is such a feat?

Consider: Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno entered the 2025 NCAA season at TCU fresh off a fifth-place finish at the 2024 Olympic Games. The year prior, they made the finals of the European Championships. They’d beaten a cadre of the best teams not just in college beach volleyball, but in the world.

They lost six.

To be on court one in NCAA Beach Volleyball is to play professionals, either current or future, on a weekly basis. Indeed, Durish and Koenig thrice matched up with Anhelina Khmil, who stunned Cruz and Brasher on the Beach Pro Tour in 2025, won a bronze medal at the Vienna Challenge, and represented Ukraine in the World Championships. They swept USC’s Ashley Pater and Kennedy Coakley, a precocious pair who finished third at the 2025 AVP Manhattan Beach Open.

They themselves, too, are professionals, for what did Durish and Koenig do during Florida State’s bye week in early March but fly to India for the first Challenge event of their careers on the Beach Pro Tour.

They won all five matches in Bhubaneswar and beat the top three seeds, which included a two-time Olympian in Xinyi Xia and a World Champion and Olympian in Sara Hughes. They flew back, hilarious trophies and a gold medal in hand, met their teammates at Stetson, swapped their USA Volleyball jerseys for the garnet and gold of Florida State, and won six more matches by the week’s end, against four teams who would make the NCAA Championship.

For some, the conclusion of the NCAA Championship is the conclusion of their beach volleyball careers. They’ll get into a career of their choosing, one that does not include tank-tops and athletic shorts and sunscreen and copious amounts of sand in their lives. For Durish and Koenig, their 33-0 senior season is merely the springboard upon which their professional careers will be built.

In a week, they’ll fly to China and the Philippines right after for a pair of Challenges on the Beach Pro Tour. They have designs on Gstaad and Manhattan Beach and every other iconic event there is in this sport. At some point — we suppose, anyway — they will lose a match. But for now – forever – they will enter NCAA Beach history as one of its three greatest teams.

It’s just math.