About the only thing that can slow down the Sandra Day O’Connor Eagles beach volleyball program nowadays is a basketball.

This week, O’Connor head coach Jamey Spartz suffered a finger injury in her P.E. class while playing basketball. But it didn’t jam her or her team up Wednesday in the biggest beach volleyball match of the season so far.

Spartz and her swollen ring finger still celebrated after the top-ranked Eagles clipped visiting Notre Dame, 4-1, to extend D-I’s longest current win beach streak. The string of victories now sits at 54 for the three-time defending Division I champ.

The Eagles haven’t dropped a team match since March of 2022. Not bad for a program that lost seven starters last year.

“I don’t think about the streak to be honest with you,” Spartz said, “because I take it one match at a time. It’s a huge success and accomplishment what these girls have done. It takes a village. We all do it together. I am super proud of every player on this team.”

Three of those players Spartz is proud of played their final regular season match for their school Wednesday.

O’Connor honored Izzy Cota, Natalie Gilbert and Leyton Heldt on Senior Night before handing second-ranked Notre Dame (9-1) its first loss of the year. The win placed the Eagles in the driver’s seat for the Desert Valley Region title and may have also locked up the No. 1 state seed in D-I for 11-0 O’Connor.

A pair of sophomores, Sami Mondino and Alyssa Archiello, clinched the big victory for Spartz’s program. But Notre Dame’s Conley Arnold and Cassidy Graninger didn’t surrender easily.

The No. 4 flight trailed Mondino and Archiello 19-15 in the second game and 11-3 in the third game but almost pulled off the comeback. Arnold and Graninger did rally to win Game 2 21-17.

And despite O’Connor’s eight point lead in the final game, Arnold and Graninger once again battled back. They were down 11-10 and 12-11 before Mondino and Archiello finally closed it out.

Mondino, an indoor player, and her big arm swing terminated her share of well-placed Archiello sets.

“Playing (Notre Dame) was a wake up call, because all season our team, for the most part, has had pretty comfortable outcomes," Spartz said. 
"We had a couple of teams that also pushed us. Queen Creek being one of them.”

The defending D-I pairs champs, Emma McSorley and Lauren Watson, picked up Notre Dame’s only doubles win.

They defeated fellow No. 1 Gilbert and Delaney Singleton 21-11, 23-21.

McSorley and Watson are Notre Dame’s first players to claim a beach title. But Notre Dame will have to wait another day to try and defeat O’Connor for the first time.

“It was a good battle,” Notre Dame coach Jamie Walsh said. “We are looking forward to hopefully seeing them again in the playoffs.”

2, 3, 5 flight scores

No. 2 Letyon Heldt/Kaylee Woodruff O’Connor def. Bailey Kealy/Samantha Cardoza 17-21, 21-15, 15-11.

No. 3 Kaiya Kearney/Imani Huesca O’Connor def. Avery Reynolds/Madigan Dresser 21-10, 21-14.

No. 5 Mirenah Martin/Nikolina Mimic O’Connor def. Sutton Hartman/Allie Miller 21-11, 21-19.