AVP Huntington Beach 2025: Women's Tournament
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 sets, first to 21 in this case, or by winning 2 of the 3 sets, with the first two sets playing to 21 and the third playing to 15, with all three requiring a lead of 2 points or more when the set is finished. In the pros once a pair win their two sets, they have won the game and move on in the bracket, but NCAA is a little different, just because you've won two of your sets doesn't always mean you've won the game. In order for your school to win in NCAA your school has to win at least 3 of the 5 games they have going on against the other school. By that I mean each time a school plays against each other, they have their top 5 pairs playing each other and in order to win your school has to have at least 3 of your pairs beating 3 pairs of your opponents. Today's women's teams will be Melissa Humana-Paredes with Brandi Wilkerson for the first team and Kelly Cheng with Molly Shaw as the second team.
Let's start off with Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson. This duo recently came home withe the silver medal in Paris for the 2024 Olympics for Team Canada so they are very talented and have been very successful on both the international tour as well as on the AVP. Thier first game in Huntington Beach was against Malia Gementera and Taylor Haggenah. Both sets ended 21-13 and both in favor of Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes. Their second game was against Corinne Quiggle and Megan Rice. The first set ended at 21-10, in favor of Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes, while the second set ended at 21-12, also in favor of Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes. Thier next game was against Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft. Since This was one of the semifinal games, it will be covered after the men's tournament so stay tuned for that when it comes out here shortly.
With Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson moving on to the semifinals, let's see how Cheng and Shaw did. I actually met both of these at the AVP event in Manhattan Beach and Molly recognizes me every year and is how I met her husband James (who also plays on the AVP and was paired with 2016 Olympian Chaim Schalk for this tournament if you were curious). Cheng and Shaw played their first game against Devon Newberry and Jaden Whitmarsh. The first set ended 23-21, in favor of Newberry and Whitmarsh, while the second set ended 21-14 in favor of Cheng and Shaw, and caused a third set. The third set ended at 18-16 in favor of Shaw and Cheng, showing you just how important that two point lead to finish can be. Their next game was against Toni Rodriguez and Geena Urango. The first set ended at 21-15, in favor of Cheng and Shaw, while the second set ended at 22-20, in favor of Cheng and Shaw again. After winning that game, the pair moved on to their next game against Taryn (Kloth) Brasher and Kristen Nuss. This was also a semifinal game so stay tuned for that blog after my coverage of the men's tournament.
That concludes today's blog covering the women's bracket of the 2025 AVP Huntington Beach Open in Huntington Beach, California. Next week I will cover the men's tournament and after that it will be the semifinals and finals of both brackets if you want to see how these women's pairs did. I hope you enjoyed the first blog of the 2025 AVP season and until next time, Miller out
~J. Miller
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