The Miami Mayhem enjoyed the most productive weekend of the four debuting teams as the cutting-edge AVP League made its second series stop.
The Mayhem went 3-1, with Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner winning both of their matches at the Hard Rock Tennis Center in Miami Gardens, Florida, a venue that is part of the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium complex.
April Ross and Alix Klineman of the Mayhem, gold-medal greats in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, produced the most noteworthy victory of the eight matches contested on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, all of which went two sets.
The new moms reaffirmed that they were more than capable of competing at the very top level of beach volleyball by taking down the reigning Olympic silver medalists, Melissa Humana-Parades and Brandie Wilkerson of Canada, playing for the Palm Beach Passion, on Saturday.
The first set to 15 points between wild-card selections April and Alix and automatic League qualifiers Mel and Brandie (champions in two of the three AVP Heritage Series tournaments in 2024) was on a see-saw until it leveled at 9. A darting ace up the middle by the 6-foot-5 Klineman was shanked by Humana-Parades and gave the Mayhem duo an 11-10 edge. Alix’s sharp-angled chop away from her body made the count 13-12.
Then the 42-year-old Ross stretched out her 6-foot-1 frame to snag Brandie’s angled pokie a few inches above the sand and scored in transition with a nifty slice down the line, gaining crucial two-point (14-12) separation. Klineman punctuated the 15-13 victory by taking out the trash on an overpassed dig by Mel.
The second set got dicey in a hurry for the Canadians, who fell behind 8-4, and it went downhill from there. April and Alix cruised 15-8, the end coming when Wilkerson was whistled for a double. The match lasted just 34 minutes.
Statement accomplished by the “A Team.” Brandie was held to .313 hitting for the match and Mel .250.
“We’ve been working really hard knowing that the League would be our last chance to make a big push,” said Ross, who saw the bulk of the serves, and racked up 11 kills on 23 swings against three errors, dialed up two aces and made nine digs.
“We’ve been trying to bring that intensity every day in practice and it’s gotten better and better. I felt we just needed this under-the-lights big-time match to fully go after it. We’re extremely excited about how it went.”
“We were a little unsatisfied with our finishes in the Heritage Series (seventh at Huntington Beach, ninth in the Manhattan Beach Open), so we were really grateful to get the wild card. We’re here to prove that we are deserving of it,” added Klineman, 34, who logged seven kills on 10 attempts with one error, a .600 percentage, and served two aces.
The sledding proved far more difficult on a hot-and-humid South Florida Sunday afternoon against U.S. Olympians and MBO champions Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss of the Austin Aces. TKN (as they are known) came out with a purpose and never let off the gas, needing only 32 minutes to record a 15-9, 15-9 victory over April and Alix. The 6-foot-4 Kloth hit .800 (eight kills on 10 errorless attempts) and ripped three aces. The 5-foot-6 Nuss went 10-for-15 with one error (.600 efficiency), adding seven digs and an ace.
The Mayhem’s 3-1 record (with nine potential tiebreaker points based on three for each two-set win) places them in second place in the AVP League standings, a game behind the New York Nitro, who went 4-0 in Week 1.
Manhattan Beach Open winners Trevor Crabb and Brunner bounced the Passion’s Phil Dalhausser and Avery Drost 15-8, 15-12 on Saturday, then ground out an 18-16, 15-12 victory on Sunday over veterans Paul Lotman and Billy Allen of the Aces on Sunday. The men of Mayhem held off two set points in the first before Brunner’s rejection of Allen sealed the deal. The second set ended on Theo’s crosscourt detonation.
“It’s hot out here and we were just trying to problem-solve,” the 6-foot-7 Brunner. “I felt like every time we were about to get a lead (Lotman and Allen) would make a great serve or a great play. But that’s beach and why these short sets are fun.”
Theo negated many of the issues with a stat line that included 13 kills on 17 errorless swings (.697) and four blocks.
The most contentious and longest (40 minutes) match of the weekend came in the opener on Saturday, when Kloth and Nuss were extended into overtime in both sets before notching a nail-biting 17-15, 20-18 victory over the Dallas Dream’s up-and-coming duo of Hailey Harward and Kylie Deberg.
The clinching points in the first set came when Nuss put her trademark looping jumbo shrimp shot into the far corner and Kloth got a shank into the net on her serve. The second set turned TKN’s way as the 6-foot-4 Deberg’s sailed a knuckle-poke way long and Kloth, scrambling off the net, brought up a one-armed-stab dig and thundered the ball to the sand in transition.
“Great match by Hailey and Kylie,” Nuss said, “but it was fitting that this girl,” pointing to her tall partner while stretching out one arm, “ended the match with that beautiful dig.”
Tayrn had gigantic numbers with 17 kills on 23 attempts against one error (.696), three aces and three digs, while Nuss dug 11 balls.
The Aces were 2-2 (with six tiebreaker points) on the weekend, with TKN going 2-0, and Lotman-Allen falling twice. Paul and Billy also lost a one-sided 15-10, 15-9 affair on Saturday to U.S. Olympians and AVP Chicago champions Miles Partain and Andy Benesh, representing the Dream, who then easily dispatched Dalhausser and Drost 15-8, 15-9 on Sunday.
After their loss to Ross and Klineman, the Canadian silver medalists came out loaded for bear, taking out their frustrations on Harward and Deberg. Motivated Mel and Brandie delivered a 15-5, 15-11 spanking that took just 26 minutes.
So the Dream went 2-2 (with six tiebreaker points): 2-0 by Partain-Benesh and 0-2 by Harward-Deberg. The Passion finished 1-3 (with three tiebreaker points: 1-1 by Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson; 0-2 by Lotman-Allen.
All of the action from Week 2 of the AVP League was streamed live on the free Bally Live app and the matches have been archived on the AVP’s free YouTube channel.
Two of the teams that competed on Week 1 in Los Angeles will join two from South Florida in the third week of League competition on Sept. 28-29, with doubleheaders both days at Viejas Arena on the campus of San Diego State in Southern California.
Here are the lineups for the third of eight regular-season AVP League weekends:
Saturday
New York Nitro (4-0; Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander; Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes) vs. San Diego Smash (2-2; Chase Budinger and Miles Evans; Geena Urango and Toni Rodriguez).
Dallas Dream (2-2; Miles Partain and Andy Benesh; Kylie Deberg and Hailey Harward) vs. Miami Mayhem (3-1; Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner; April Ross and Alix Klineman).
Sunday
Nitro vs. Dream and Smash vs. Mayhem.
The match on Sunday between the Smash and Mayhem will feature the first competition with Budinger and Trevor Crabb since their controversial dustup during the Chicago Heritage Series tournament in which Budinger shoved Crabb to the sand.
The results from each match in the series will go toward determining the four qualifiers for the bracket-style championship rounds on Nov. 9 and 10 at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
