AVP Palm Beach 2025: Women's Tournament
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 Diego Smash.
With the league still being fairly new, I'm learning a little more from each city they stop at but one thing that remains the same is how the game works on the sand. If you've read my coverage of the tournament in Huntington Beach, California or NCAA beach volleyball, you may already understand but for those who don't, let me explain. For the AVP, a game lasts either two sets to 21 each (if the same team wins both of those) or two sets to 21 each followed by a third set to 15 (if each team wins one of the first two sets). After winning either both sets or two of the three sets, you've won your game. Unlike previous years, the league doesn't have a bracket to work your way through to see who wins the tournament, instead you play two games with one on day one and one on day two along with the first two sets playing to 15 (like the third set does) instead of playing to 21. With each city represented playing two games for each gender, they only play twice at each city they play in instead of 2, 3, 4, or even 9 games in a weekend for each duo (pair or partners depending on what you want to call them). Cities like Huntington Beach in May and Manhattan Beach in August will still go by the usual first to 21 in the fist and second sets unlike the first to 15 for the league.
Let's start off with the Palm Beach Passion that include Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, your Paris 2024 silver medalists if you haven't seen the first AVP blog I did for the 2025 season in Huntington Beach, California. They first played the Brooklyn Blaze, which consisted of Lexi Denaburg and Julia Donlin. The first set ended 15-12 in favor of Denaburg and Donlin while the second set ended 15-13 n favor of Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson, causing a third set. That third set ended at 15-13 as well but this time in favor of Denaburg and Donlin, giving them a 2-1 win over Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes. Their second match was against the Dallas Dream, which consisted of my friend Hailey Harward and her partner for the season, Kylie Deberg. The first set ended 15-9 while the second set ended 15-12, both in favor of Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson, giving them a 1-1 finish for the weekend.
Now let's see how the San Diego Smash, made up of Geena Urango and Toni Rodriguez did in their two matches of the weekend. Their first game was against the Dallas Dream duo of Harward and Deberg. The first and second sets both ended at 15-13 with Harward and Deberg taking the first set while Urango and Rodriguez took the second set. The third set ended at 15-8 with Urango and Rodriguez taking that set and winning 2-1 against Harward and Deberg. Their second game was against Lexy Denaburg and Julia Donlin, of the Brooklyn Blaze. The first set ended 17-15 (remember that even though you don't play to 21 you still need a lead of 2 points or more) in favor of Denaburg and Donlin while the second set ended at 15-10, also in favor of Denaburg and Donlin, giving them a 2-0 win over Urango and Rodriguez. Giving them a 1-1 finish in Palm Beach.
This concludes the first stop of the women's teams in Palm Beach, Florida. Next will be the men's tournament in the same city, so stay tuned for that coming out next. If there's a certain sport or match up you'd like to read about or see me cover, let me know down below and until next time, Miller out
~J. Miller
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