AVP League weekend features Dream, Mayhem, Nitro, Smash in San Diego

Any of the four high-profile men’s pairs could go 2-0 as the innovative AVP League gathers steam in Week 3 with a return to Southern California. Or any could be 0-2. Or perhaps more likely, all might finish 1-1.

The quartet of men’s matches split between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon are pure crapshoots. They figure to hog the spotlight as the League series transitions indoors to Viejas Arena on the campus of San Diego State, since all could be finals or semifinals of traditional bracket-style AVP tournaments.

The action from Week 3 of the AVP League will be streamed live on the free Bally Live app and ballylive.com, and the matches will be archived on the AVP’s free YouTube channel.

The lineup for the League’s third week appears to pack more potentially contentious matches than fans saw in the first two go-rounds at the UCLA tennis stadium and the Hard Rock tennis venue in South Florida. Half of the matches in Los Angeles went to third sets, but all eight last week were two-set (to 15 points) sweeps.

The gantlet of marquee matchups the men will run in San Diego was set up by these scenarios:

•  U.S. Olympians Miles Partain and Andy Benesh of the 2-2 Dallas Dream defeated Taylor Crabb (hobbled and shoe-wearing) and Taylor Sander of the League-leading 4-0 New York Nitro in the title match of the last of three Heritage Series events in Chicago.
• Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner of the 3-1 Miami Mayhem took down Partain-Benesh in the final of the Manhattan Beach Open, the Wimbledon of beach volleyball.
•  U.S. Olympians Chase Budinger and Miles Evans of the 2-2 San Diego Smash made appearances in Heritage Series semifinals at the MBO (falling to Partain-Benesh in three sets) and Chicago (dropping a three-setter to the Taylors).
•  The matchup that will be most hotly anticipated, however, will be when Trevor and Chase stand across the net from each other for the first time in a competition since “The Shove” by former NBA player Budinger that sent the older Crabb brother tumbling to the sand four weeks ago in Chicago, a physical escalation of the barking and pointing that had gone on during the match.

The on-court dustup had marinated for a while after Budinger and Evans leapfrogged Trevor and Theo late in the lengthy qualifying process for the USA’s second spot in the Paris Olympics. Bad blood ensued.

Chase said he got physical with Trevor, the AVP’s resident “bad boy,” because, “I’m tired of his talk. He’s been talking all season about my partner and all that s–t. So it was time for someone to talk back and challenge him – and that’s what I did.”

The AVP has not tried to sweep “The Shove” under the sand. Just the opposite. Video of the buzz-creating incident has been featured in the opening montage for the League’s live streams on the Bally Live app. This will be the only meeting between Chase’s Smash and Trevor’s Mayhem during the eight regular-season stops of the League, although the teams could square off in the playoffs.

Meanwhile, Taylor Crabb said that he should be as close to 100% physically as he can be, considering he has dealt for a while with an ongoing issue in his left foot. Crabb said he has a broken sesamoid (a small free-floating bone) that rests under his fifth metatarsal, the bone on the outside of the foot running to his little toe.

He said that on the Wednesday before the Chicago tournament over the Labor Day Weekend, his left foot swelled. Antibiotics and antiinflammatories helped calm down the swelling and he wore socks and athletic shoes, “because it felt better in the show with more cushion.” That he and Sander advanced to the final after being bounced into the contenders bracket in the first round made their accomplishment all the more remarkable.

“As long as it doesn’t swell up again like it did in Chicago, I can manage the fracture,” Crabb said. “With this injury, it’s just rest and let it heal on its own, which I will have the offseason to do.”

The Nitro went undefeated in the first week, giving them a leg up the standings after the Mayhem had the best record in Week 2, winning two out of three.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better start to this new League,” Crabb said, “with four wins and being in first place. I love the format. It’s awesome that we actually have a team aspect to it and we get to cheer on the girls team and they can cheer on us.

“What the AVP has created in a short time with the League is the future of our sport. So far I am on board and I love everything about it.”

From the perspective of appeal to potential casual fans, the League has turned an all-day grind into a more manageable sports experience.

“What’s cool about the format, the fans know who is going to play. It’s not a long day at the beach where you have to be there from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the sun,” Crabb told us. “It’s a max or 3-to-4 hours and you don’t have to sit around all day waiting for your favorite team to play.”

Another aspect of the League has quickly gained the favor of the players is an awareness of whom the opposition will be coming in.

“ I believe in our team’s ability, especially when we have a full week to prepare, which is another thing I like about this format,” Crabb said. “We know who we’re playing, so we can come in prepared for the two teams we know we will play.

“It’s so different from tournaments when you don’t know who you might be playing until an hour before the match. Film study … even practice walk-throughs with guys coming to practice to help us emulate certain things our opponents are going to do. So it’s a completely different game now that we have all of this time to prepare.”

With a high potential for a split in the four men’s matches, logic dictates that what the women do might well determine which team “wins the week.”

The Nitro’s Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes, U.S. Olympians in Paris, went 2-0 on the opening week and appear positioned to do that again. “I have great confidence in Kelly and Sara against any of the teams in the League,” Crabb said matter-of-factly.

After taking down 2024 Olympic silver medalists Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson of the Palm Beach Passion last week at the Hard Rock, the continuing storyline of the Mayhem’s April Ross and Alix Klineman, the 2021 gold medalists in Tokyo, will be heavily scrutinized.

Here are the lineups at San Diego State’s Viejas Arena for the third of eight regular-season AVP League weekends:

Saturday 

Dallas Dream (2-2) vs. Miami Mayhem (3-1) 

Women (6 p.m. Pacific): Hailey Harward and Kylie Deberg  (Dream, 0-2) vs. April Ross and Alix Klineman (Mayhem 1-1).
Men (7 p.m.): Miles Partain and Andy Benesh (Dream, 2-0) vs. Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner (Mayhem, 2-0).

New York Nitro (4-0) vs. San Diego Smash (2-2)

Men (8 p.m.): Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander (Nitro, 2-0) vs. Chase Budinger and Miles Evans (Smash, 1-1).
Women (9 p.m.): Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes (Nitro, 2-0) vs. Geena Urango and Toni Rodriguez (Smash, 1-1).

Sunday

New York Nitro vs. Dallas Dream

Women (1 p.m. Pacific): Cheng-Hughes (Nitro) vs. Harward-Deberg (Dream).
Men (2 p.m.): Taylor Crabb-Sander (Nitro) vs. Pertain-Benesh (Dream).

San Diego Smash vs. Miami Mayhem

Men (3 p.m.): Budinger-Evans (Smash) vs. Trevor Crabb-Brunner (Mayhem).
Women (4 p.m.): Urango-Rodriguez vs. (Smash) vs. Ross-Klineman (Mayhem).

The results from each match in the series will count 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. Each team will play four regular-season games.

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