Sports by Miller

 Dear Readers~     Welcome to the next city of the 2025 AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) season, Palm Beach, Florida that hosted the first tournament of the new AVP League  on May 23rd and 24th at the Delray Beach Tennis Center. This tournament only lasted two days and had no technical semfinals and finals matches so all of the women's results will be here while next week will have all of the men's results.     The way the league works is that there are 8 teams total. There 4 teams (or 8 pairs since each team has a women's pair and a men's pair) at each city they stop at and the teams change cities so each city doesn't have the same four teams playing each time. This one in Palm Beach has the Dallas Dream, San Diego Smash, Brooklyn Blaze, and Palm Beach Passion while the next city, San Diego, will have a few of these teams mixed with a few new ones. Today's games will focus on the Palm Beach Passion (since it's in Palm Beach) and also the San D...

 Dear Readers~     Welcome to today's blog covering the semifinals and finals of the 2025 AVP Huntington Beach Open that took place in Huntington Beach, California. In my first blog of the season, I covered the women's teams of Kelly Cheng paired with Molly Shaw and Melissa Humana-Paredes paired with Brandi Wilkerson. Last week I covered the men's teams of Cerutti Alison paired with Alvaro Filho and Billy Allen paired with Taylor Crabb. In today's blog we'll see who made it to the end of the bracket and who won the tournament. Out of the four pairs I've talked about, only Alison and Filho were the only pair who didn't make the semifinals, which is sad since they fell short by only one game.     The first women's semifinal had #4 Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw playing against #1 Taryn (Kloth) Brasher and Kristen Nuss. The first set ended 21-15 while the second set ended 21-17, both in favor of Brasher and Nuss, moving them on to the finals.     The second w...

 Dear Readers~     Welcome to the men's tournament of the 2025 AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) Huntington Beach Open that took place in Huntington Beach, California on May 10th and 11th. In the last blog I covered the women's tournament with the pairs of Brandi Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes along with Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw. For the men's tournament, I will cover the pairs of Cerutti Alison and Alvaro Morais Filho along with the other pair of Billy Allen and Taylor Crabb.     Let's learn a little bit more about how the AVP works and the rules on and off the sand. So, in previous years, the AVP has had tournaments (also called events, stops, or opens, I will refer to them as any of these) in various cities around the country. Every year I go to the one held in Manhattan Beach, California (about 5 miles south of LAX) that happens every year in the middle of August. The one in Manhattan Beach is the only tournament this year that will be 3 ...

 Dear Readers~     Welcome to the first blog of the 2025 AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) season. This season will last from May 10th and 11th with the stop in Huntington Beach, California all the way until August 30th and 31st (Labor Day weekend) with the stop in Chicago, Illinois. Most of these tournaments will last two days compared to the three days in previous years. I hope you enjoyed reading about the NCAA beach season and are ready for more beach volleyball with the professionals. This blog will talk about how two of the female teams did while next week I will talk about how two of the male teams did.     Without further ado, let's explain the difference between the previously discussed NCAA level of beach and the professional level of beach.  For those who don't know, NCAA and Professional Beach Volleyball have the winner determined a little differently. In both sports the pair who wins has to win 2 sets whether it be by winning both s...

 Dear Readers~     The whole season has led down to this moment as #2 TCU (Texas Christian University) takes on #4 LMU (Loyola Marymount University) to see who the 2025 national champion can be. Ever since 2016 when it started, it's been won by UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) in 2018 and 2019 and USC (University of Southern California) in 2016, 2017, 2021-2024, meaning out of the 8 national championships there have been, 6 were won by USC. With LMU taking out USC in the second round/ quarterfinals and LMU also taking out UCLA in the semifinals, the pressure is on for them to do good. With TCU as the higher ranked team, there's a lot of pressure for them to do good as well. With both teams having very well experienced coaches along with players and also LMU having won both previous meet ups this season (both close at 3-2), who do you think will win: #2 TCU or #4 LMU? Let's get into today's game to find out so onto Gulf Shores, Alabama we go for the final gam...

 Dear Readers~     Welcome to the second semifinal game. This game has #2 TCU (Texas Christian University) taking on #6 Cal Poly (California Polytechnic) to see who will join last week's winner in the national finals. After covering UCLA taking on UTC, LMU taking on USC, and UCLA taking on LMU, it's time I cover a game from the bottom half of the bracket and there's no better place to start than with who I think will win that national title but do I think that's who will actually win, let's get started to find out.     Let's learn about our coaches, starting with TCU based in Fort Worth, Texas. TCU has Hector Gutierrez as their head coach while Majo Orellana is the assistant head coach, and Daniel Lindsey is the assistant coach. Gutierrez became head coach starting in the 2016-2017 season and has held the position ever since. Before being at TCU, Gutierrez was an assistant coach for Florida State's beach volleyball program. He even spent the first half of th...