There the scores stayed, stuck at 10-9 in the third set between two young American teams with a great deal of interest back home and no way of knowing what was happening save for the slow tick of the online scoreboard.
Yet there was no more ticking.
For 10 minutes, Deahna Kraft and Lexy Denaburg remained up 10-9 in a third set against Hailey Harward and Kylie DeBerg in the second round of the Volleyball World Stare Jablonki Challenge qualifier. Weather delay? There’d already been two, totaling nearly five hours of nerve-inducing sitting, kudos of summer Polish storms bringing thunder and lightning over the stunning lakeside venue. But this was no weather delay. This was a Lexy Denaburg delay, so to speak.
Denaburg, the winningest player in UCLA beach volleyball history, possesses a rare physicality, the type of player who, after a loss or bad practice, “would take it out in the weight room,” she once said. “That’s where I got my comfort from. It’s a good thing but it can be a bad thing when I do it way too much.”
On Thursday in Stare Jablonki, in northeast Poland, it was a bad thing for Harward and DeBerg. In the second set, Denaburg cracked a swing that caromed off the head of DeBerg, the effects of which compounded to the point that, at 10-9 in the third, DeBerg was unable to continue.
“She literally hit it as hard as she could,” said Kraft, who will be playing in her first Beach Pro Tour main draw since the Dubai Challenge of 2022. “But [Kylie] was still ripping. We couldn’t serve her.”
The fact that they were serving anyone at all is a bit of a surprise to both. On Sunday night, Kraft and Denaburg weren’t yet in the tournament, still marooned on the reserve list. At 6:30 Monday morning, Kraft “woke up before my alarm because my spidey senses were tingling.”
The spidey senses were onto something: Several teams had dropped out. They were in.
“We both agreed we had nothing to lose, only things to gain,” Kraft said. “Whether we win or lose it was a unique opportunity to grow as a team.”
Grow they did, as the 25 seed in the qualifier, surviving a three-setter against the Czech Republic’s Miroslava Dunarova and Daniela Resova in the first round (21-17, 9-21, 15-8) and then another against Harward and DeBerg in the second (13-21, 21-17, 10-9). It is Denaburg’s first main draw at a Challenge event; her only other international experience came last summer at a Futures in Seoul, Korea, where she won gold with Carly Kan.
“We came into this tournament with the mindset that we really had nothing to lose and so much to learn and gain,” Denaburg said. “For me personally, I just need the international experience. And I remember talking through it with my mom and just thinking to myself that if we don’t go, we’re going to be staying in the same place we are right now.
“This is such a great opportunity before a long training block we have to go play, learn, then come back with some stuff we can integrate into our practices. I’m so excited to have made main draw, I’m just having so much fun here with D and I’m excited that we have more opportunities to learn and grow on the court. If I’ve learned anything at UCLA it was how to have fun and go with the flow during the unexpected.”
Joining Denaburg and Kraft in the main draw out of the qualifier are Savvy Simo and Abby Van Winkle. Already enjoying a wonderful season, with two NORCECA medals, a stunning upset at the Guadalajara Challenge, making it through the qualifier at AVP Huntington Beach, they extended their run in Poland with two wins in the qualifier to punch their ticket to another main draw.
“Making the main draw never gets old,” Simo said. “Especially with the week I had.”
The week she had included panic attacks, a topic on which Simo has opened up on social media. On the plane. In the middle of the night. Even during their second match, against China’s Jie Dong and Jingzhe Wang, the 2 seed whom they swept 21-14, 21-19.
“I just feel so rewarded for pushing through and qualifying,” Simo said. “I couldn’t have done it without Abby on the court and her mom and grandma off the court. She was so supportive and they’ve been so helpful with all the logistics and I’m just so grateful to be here with them. We had support from a lot of USA athletes and staff in that last game and that helped me get through too. Like I said, that qualifying feeling never gets old and this one feels a little bit sweeter.”
Brooke Sweat and Kennedy Coakley fell in the final round of the qualifier to France’s Aline Chamereau and Clemence Vieira.
Due to the multiple weather delays, the second round of the men’s qualifier, as well as one women’s match — Canadians Sarah Pavan and Molly McBain vs. Germans Lea Kunst and Julia Sude — has been pushed to Friday morning.
All eyes on Budinger-Evans, Crabb-Brunner in Stare Jablonki
Even with the new faces of Denaburg and Kraft and Simo and Van Winkle, all of whom are 25 years old or younger, in the main draw, and familiar ones in Kim Hildreth and Teegan Van Gunst, who were straight into the main, all eyes for American fans from here on out will be focused on two teams: Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner, and Chase Budinger and Miles Evans. Entering the season, Budinger and Evans trailed Brunner and Crabb by nearly 500 points in the Olympic rankings.
Eight events later, Budinger and Evans have seized control of the race, using three straight top-fives to go up 540 points with only this weekend’s Stare Jablonki Challenge and next week’s Ostrava Elite16 remaining in the Olympic qualifying period. The lead is comfortable enough that even if Brunner and Crabb win the event, and Budinger and Evans do not add to their total, they’ll still trail by 200 points. Crabb and Brunner need a fifth or better in Poland to improve upon their points, while Budinger and Evans need to make the semifinals.
Regardless of results in Stare Jablonki, the Olympic race cannot be mathematically decided until next week in Ostrava. If Budinger and Evans win gold in Poland and Brunner and Crabb do not add to their total, a gold in Ostrava for Crabb and Brunner would still keep the race tied.
