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The New York Nitro threw down the gauntlet by winning all four of its matches as the sand-breaking AVP League made its debut this past weekend.
Tabbed as one of the preseason League favorites, the Nitro’s dynamic duos of USA Olympians and reigning world champions Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes and fan favorites Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander collectively dropped one set while defeating the Brooklyn Blaze on Saturday night and the LA Launch on Sunday afternoon at the Los Angeles Tennis Center on the campus of UCLA.
“We’ve got a great vibe going on with our team. The Taylors are awesome,” Hughes said after hitting .900 (9-for-10 with no errors) and making 11 digs in a 17-15, 15-9 victory over the Launch’s Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles that closed out Sunday’s doubleheader.
Crabb and Sander weathered no little adversity in pulling out an air-tight 14-16, 17-15, 15-12 triumph over Tim Bomgren and Troy Field of the Launch. Crabb this weekend ditched the athletic shoes and tube socks he wore to protect an injury to his left foot during a run to the Heritage Series final in Chicago two weeks ago.
A constant theme of the first two twin bills was how the shorter sets to 15 points (rather than the standard 21-21-15 best-of-three format used in bracket-style events) created an immediate sense of urgency
“You’ve got to come out strong, which is a challenge for us because sometimes we come out slow and finish fast,” Cheng said.
The first set against Flint and Scoles mirrored that tendency. Cheng-Hughes trailed 12-8 — a huge hole to crawl out of — after the 6-foot-1 Scoles’ thunderous kill from eight feet off the net that chiseled Cheng’s block.
But three consecutive points on Flint’s service error, Hughes’ spike in transition and a double called on Scoles’ hand-set gave the Nitro pair new hope. They survived two set points, pulling even at 14 on an open-net detonation by Hughes, then gained a one-point edge on a clever back bump to the far cross-court corner by Cheng. Hughes put an exclamation point on the set by calmly digging Scoles’ sizzling spike, soaring high off of the newly laid jumper’s sand at the UCLA tennis stadium, and pounding down a ball past a frantically retreating Scoles.
The teams played even through the first half of the second set, until a knuckle-poke by Flint sailed just past the baseline and the Blaze’s women found themselves at a 9-6 disadvantage that grew from there.
Cheng and Hughes won the first match in League history, opening the show on Saturday night with a 15-13, 16-14 victory over the Blaze’s Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon. Hughes’ fleet feet again played a key role at a pivotal time. A three-point push late in the first set was highlighted by Sara’s spectacular diving back-bump set that positioned Kelly for a straight-down dart, giving them a 13-11 lead. A back-and-forth second set was decided on Hughes’ rising float-serve ace that ate up Cannon and a kill in transition by Cheng, who hit .481 (16-for-27 with three errors) while adding six digs, a block and an ace.
The popular Taylors dispatched Cody Caldwell and Seain Cook of the Blaze in workmanlike fashion 15-10, 15-11, limiting Caldwell to .176 efficiency (7-for-17 with four errors). The Nitro’s 4-0 record earned 11 “tiebreaker” points, three for each two-set sweep and two for a three-set triumph.
The San Diego Smash were next best in the standings after the opening weekend with a 2-2 mark and five tiebreaker points. The Launch and the Blaze each finished 1-3 with four tiebreaker points.
USA Olympians Chase Budinger and Miles Evans of the Smash took a 13-15, 15-11, 16-14 nail-biter over Bomgren and Field on Saturday night. The climactic points in the tiebreaker came when former NBA player Budinger won a joust at the net with Bomgren and Evans dialed up a top-spin jump-serve winner that split the middle.
However, on Sunday, Caldwell and Cook produced arguably the biggest surprise of the weekend, taking down Budinger and Evans 15-12, 15-13. Caldwell bounced back in a big way with 10 kills on 14 attempts with one error (.643) three blocks and two aces.
Also splitting matches for the Smash were Geena Urango and Toni Rodriguez. Urango shrugged off relentless service pressure to record 21 kills on 36 swings against five errors (.444) and 11 digs in a 15-12, 11-15, 15-13 victory on Sunday over Kraft and Cannon. Rodriguez got only 13 attempts in the three-setter, but contributed three aces and three blocks.
On Saturday, Urango and Rodriguez dropped a heartbreaker to Flint and Scoles, failing to convert two match points during a marathon second set, before falling 9-15, 19-17, 15-12. The deciding point in the demoralizing second set was scored by Scoles on a tape-snake ace that trickled over the net.
Week 1 of the League was streamed live on the Bally Live app and the matches have been archived on the AVP’s free YouTube channel.
The four other teams in the AVP League will make their debuts on Week 2, when the series seeks to gain ticket-buying traction on Sept. 21-22 with doubleheaders both days at the Hard Rock Tennis Center in Miami Gardens, Florida. The venue is part of the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium complex.
Here are the lineups for the second of eight regular-season League weekends:
Saturday: Austin Aces (Paul Lotman and Billy Allen; USA Olympians Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss) vs. Dallas Dream (USA Olympians Miles Partain and Andy Benesh; Kylie Deberg and Hailey Harward). Palm Beach Passion (Phil Dalhausser and Avery Drost; Paris Olympic silver medalists Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson of Canada) vs. Miami Mayhem (Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner; 2021 Tokyo Olympic gold medalists April Ross and Alix Klineman).
Sunday: Aces vs. Mayhem and Dream vs. Passion.
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.
