Beach party for Ward Melville's Stonish

There is a reason Hollywood producers don't scout Long Island to shoot beach volleyball scenes. Despite the Island's ample coastline, the sport lends itself to the warmer, Southern California and Florida climates.

But Alexa Stonish, a teenage girl who attends Ward Melville High School in East Setauket, did not read the script, and has found herself in the middle of the game's birth as a college-level sport.

The senior is among the first athletes to receive a sand volleyball scholarship. A libero on the Patriots' volleyball team this past fall, she will be attending Stetson University in DeLand, Fla., on a partial athletic scholarship.

"I guess that sand was what I was hoping for," said Stonish, who declined indoor volleyball recruitment overtures in the hope that a beach volleyball school would come calling. "I felt like if it didn't work out, I could have always gone back to indoor."

Sand volleyball (also called beach volleyball) was approved as an NCAA "emerging sport" in 2009, but a year was spent debating whether its original approval should be overridden, pushing back the start of competition from its original spring 2011 target until 2012.

As an "emerging sport," 40 Division I schools must field teams within 10 years for it to be considered an NCAA "championship sport."

Long before Stonish considered sand volleyball as a collegiate option, she was an ambitious 12-year-old who attended weekend recreational leagues at Jones Beach, where she caught the eye of Keith Burt, the head instructor of B&B Volleyball in Hicksville.

"She had such a great passion for the game that she wanted to play all day long," Burt recalled.

Stonish enjoyed the freedom that the sport provided. The indoor game is a more rigid form of the sport, as six players, each in a set position, work to create a harmonious team game.

Sand volleyball is a two-person game with no set positions. Each player is involved on most every play and, like a free-flowing jazz performance, there is room to improvise.

"I love the idea that you're not set in one position," Stonish said. "I really loved it, and that's what I wanted to do."

Ward Melville volleyball coach Charlie Fernandes says Stonish's uncanny passing eye and instincts translate best to the sand.

"She understands the game so well that she's sitting and waiting before you make your shot," Fernandes said.

During her weekends off from indoor club volleyball, Stonish's second home became the Southwest Airlines terminal at MacArthur Airport, as she began playing in tournaments and attending camps in Florida.

Stonish's parents, Anthony and Pamela, estimate that she has taken more than a dozen round-trip flights per year to Florida during the past three years.

This past August, she was among 20 high school athletes selected by USA Beach HP Volleyball and SportsUnited for their presidential bilateral exchange program to Russia.

Two-time Olympic beach volleyball gold medalist Misty May-Treanor served as a special instructor, eating meals and hanging out in the hotel pool with the athletes. They played exhibitions against the Russian juniors in Moscow and Anapa.

"Volleyball brought us together, and it didn't matter how much we understood each other," Stonish said.

After the Russian exhibition ended, Stonish flew to Fort Lauderdale the following day to participate in the under-18 division of the USAV Beach Junior Tour Championships.

Two days after the cross-continental flight, Stonish won the tournament with her partner, Valley Stream South's Melanie Pavels.

"I was really excited for the tournament, but after being in Russia, I didn't want to come home," Stonish joked.

Even after winning a national tournament, a sand volleyball scholarship was anything but assured. So this past winter, Stonish sent DVDs to many of the 13 Division I schools that will field programs in 2012.

Stetson coach Tim Loesch contacted Stonish the day he received her DVD and offered her a spot.

"She has very good ball control and is able to receive serve, pass and dig extremely well," Loesch said. "Just as important, she has the ability to make any of the shots."

As for Stonish, the excitement is barely containable. All she can think (and talk) about is being in the sun without spending weekends traipsing through airport terminals.

And to be among the first to play sand volleyball at the collegiate level . . . it gets no better than that.

"I'm ready to go," Stonish said. "I want to get started on this right away."