Within the hands-down marquee matchup of Week 4 within the AVP League, Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss of the Austin Aces renew their red-hot rivalry with Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, representing the Palm Seashore Ardour.
The League rolls to the Lone Star State for its fourth beach-volleyball rodeo, enjoying indoors for a second consecutive week, on the 8,700-seat H-E-B Heart at Cedar Park in suburban Austin, Texas, on Saturday night time and Sunday afternoon.
Doubleheaders in every session will characteristic the Aces, Ardour, LA Launch and Brooklyn Blaze, the groups that had been idle final weekend. The Blaze (1-3) and Launch (1-3) haven’t performed for the reason that opening week in Los Angeles. The Aces (2-2) and Ardour (1-3) noticed motion through the second go-round in South Florida.
A 4-0 weekend by any of the groups would put it within the dialog for one of many 4 postseason spots and the bonus prize cash that goes with it. All eight squads could have performed 4 video games (with males’s and girls’s matches in every) on the midway level within the League after the occasion in Texas. The New York Nitro are in first place at 7-1, the Miami Mayhem and Dallas Dream are 5-3 and the San Diego Smash are 2-6.
The video games might be streamed dwell on the free Bally Reside app and ballylive.com, and the matches might be archived on the AVP’s free YouTube channel shortly after they’re accomplished.
The extremely anticipating showdown between Kloth and Nuss (2-0 within the League) and Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson (1-1) on Saturday night time options two of the world’s premier ladies’s pairs. U.S. Olympians and the Manhattan Seashore Open champions, TKN (as they’re identified) are 8-6 all-time in opposition to Mel and Brandie, the silver medalists within the Paris Olympics. However the wildly well-liked Canadian pair has received the final three conferences, together with the AVP Huntington Seashore closing, the Spherical of 16 within the Olympics and the AVP Chicago title match.
Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson will face one other troublesome take a look at on Sunday afternoon in opposition to the Launch’s Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles (1-1), the MBO runners-up. Mel and Brandie are 5-0 all-time in opposition to Flint-Scoles, however three of the victories went to a tie-breaking set. Betsi and Julia are matched in opposition to up-and-comers Megan Kraft (the NCAA seashore participant of the yr in 2023 and ‘24) and Terese Cannon of the Blaze on Saturday, whereas TKN performs Kraft-Cannon (0-2) on Sunday.
Over on the boys’s facet, the one pair with a League “W” is the Blaze’s Cody Caldwell and Seain Cook dinner, who swept the U.S. Olympians Chase Budinger and Miles Evans of the Smash after dropping to the Nitro’s Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander.
It is a weekend to make hay in cattle nation for what seems to be to be an evenly matched group. Trying to get into the victory column are the Ardour’s Phil Dalhausser and Avery Drost, the Aces’ Paul Lotman and Billy Allen and the Launch’s Tim Bomgren and Troy Subject. It doesn’t appear exterior the realm of chance that the entire males’s duos may go 1-1.
Cook dinner advised us that he realized a worthwhile lesson about being able to play 15-point “velocity” units through the League’s debut.
“We performed rather well in opposition to Chase and Miles,” stated Cook dinner, Scotland’s reward to the AVP. “However after we (had been bounced by the Taylors), I went to Cody and apologized for not bringing the quantity of power obligatory for these 15-point units. It needs to be go-go-go, however in our first match, I used to be a little bit hesitant. Then on Sunday, it was proper from the rip, full blast. Large distinction.”
Cook dinner agreed that this was “Transferring Weekend,” to steal a phrase from golf, for the Blaze, in addition to the opposite three groups.
“It’s actually an enormous weekend for us,” he stated. “We’re our matchups and see a chance. Yeah, our matches is likely to be winnable, however all people’s going to see them that means. It makes it extra of a strain weekend. The opposite (League dates) it’s like, ‘Oh, we’ll see what we are able to make occur. If we are able to steal a win, that might be superb.’ However not this weekend.”
One of the entertaining gamers within the AVP, Cook dinner broke down the upcoming matches in opposition to Bomgren-Subject and Allen-Lotman.
“We misplaced to Tim and Troy within the semifinals at Waupaca (a Contenders Collection occasion), and Cody and I’ve by no means performed in opposition to Paul and Billy. However they’re serving rather well, ripping a number of aces. So each of those matches are going to be battles.”
Listed below are the lineups on the H-E-B Heart at Cedar Park for the fourth of eight regular-season AVP League weekends:
Saturday
Brooklyn Blaze (1-3) vs. LA Launch (1-3)
Girls (6 p.m. Central): Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon (Blaze, 0-2) vs. Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles (Launch, 1-1).
Males (7 p.m.): Cody Caldwell and Seain Cook dinner (Blaze, 1-1) vs. Tim Bomgren and Troy Subject (Launch, 0-2).
Austin Aces (2-2) vs. Palm Seashore Ardour (1-1)
Males (8 p.m.): Paul Lotman and Billy Allen (Aces, 0-2) vs. Phil Dalhausser and Avery Drost (Ardour, 0-2).
Girls (9 p.m.): Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss (Aces, 2-0) vs. Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson (Ardour, 1-1).
Sunday
LA Launch vs. Palm Seashore Ardour
Girls (1 p.m. Central): Flint-Scoles (Launch) vs. Humana-Paredes-Wilkerson (Ardour).
Males (2 p.m.): Bomgren-Subject (Launch) vs. Dalhausser-Drost (Ardour).
Brooklyn Blaze vs. Austin Aces
Males (3 p.m.): Caldwell-Cook dinner (Blaze) vs. Lotman-Subject (Aces).
Girls (4 p.m.): Kraft-Cannon (Blaze) vs. Kloth-Nuss (Aces).
The outcomes from every match within the sequence will depend towards figuring out the 4 qualifiers for the bracket-style championship rounds on Nov. 9 and 10 on the Dignity Well being Sports activities Park in Carson, California. Every workforce will play 4 regular-season video games. The primary criterion for advancing to the playoffs is workforce profitable share.
Roll photographs
— The biggest variety of cumulative views logged for a video of any AVP League match on the YouTube Channel is 22,000. The pair that has been hottest among the many YouTube channel viewers is Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander of the Nitro. Their 4 full-match movies have recorded 17,000, 17,000 (in Week 3), 18,000 and the aforementioned 22,000 (in Week 1)
— In distinction, the AVP was seen by lots of of hundreds on nationwide TV through the 2024 Heritage Collection. The Manhattan Seashore Open finals on the printed Ion channel had a total-average viewership of 299,000 and the title matches from the Chicago Heritage Collection occasion had been watched by a mean of 215,000 on the over-the-air CW Community.
— Via three League weekends, two-set matches have ranged between 26 and 40 minutes, and three-setters between 44 and 56. Two-thirds of the matches (16 to eight) have completed in two units. All units within the League are performed to fifteen factors (win by two).