AVP Manhattan Beach Open 2025: Men's Tournament

Dear Readers~


    Welcome to this very special blog of the 2025 AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) Manhattan Beach Open. Last week I covered the women's weekend while this weekend I will cover the men's weekend. As mentioned last week, I got the ability to attend this one in person as well as see some of the players and friends I've made over the years. This week will cover all three days of the men's games I watched. Due to the NCAA only having beach for the women but indoor for both, I don't know as many of the male athletes, so I don't have a lot of pictures with the athletes. If you want to see any of those, stay tuned until the end for those. Let's get into this week's AVP coverage to see how it goes.

    Keep in mind that this was a double elimination tournament which means that if you lose your first game you get moved into the contender's bracket and if you lose again, your weekend is over. The only exception to this rule is if you have a loss in the finals or semifinals in which case, you are knocked out of the tournament no matter how many games you've lost over the weekend.

    Day 1 started off by watching Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander play against Ryan Smith and Michael Groselle. Sander and Crabb would go on to win 2 sets to none to start off their weekend. This would be the only men's game I would end up getting a picture of come to find out.



Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander (our side) against Ryan Smith and Michael Groselle 

    Day 2 for the men would start out by watching James Shaw and Chaim Schalk taking on Tim Bomgren and Ryan Wilcox. This game would end 2 sets to 1 in favor of Shaw and Schalk. The next game would be Billy Allen and Paul Lotman against Dylan Maarek and Lev Priima. This game would end 2 sets to 1 in favor of Maarek and Priima. The last game of this day would be Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander taking on James Shaw and Chaim Schalk. This game would end 2 sets to none in favor of Sander and Crabb.


James Shaw and Chaim Schalk (other side of the net) against Tim Bomgren and Ryan Wilcox (our side of the net)


Billy Allen (black hat) and Paul Lotman (white hat) against Dylan Maarek and Lev Priima (in this game, I heard a ref say, "Is this really what you want to waste your time out on?")


Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander (our side of the net) against Chaim Schalk and James Shaw (other side of the net)

    The final day started with Chase Budinger and Miles Evans taking on Chaim Schalk and James Shaw in the first semifinal. One set would go to Shaw and Shalk while the other went to Budinger and Evans (with both ending at 21-18) and causing a third set. The third set ended at 15-12 in favor of Budinger and Evans, giving them the 2-1 win to move onto the finals. The second semifinals had Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander against Trevor Crabb and Phil Dalhausser. The first set ended 21-17 in favor of Crabb and Dalhausser while the second set ended 21-13 in favor of Sander and Crabb, causing a third set. The third set ended 16-14 in favor of Dalhausser and Crabb, giving them a spot in the finals. The finals had Budinger and Evans taking on Crabb and Dalhausser. The first set ended 21-19 in favor of Budinger and Evans while the second set ended at 21-16, also in favor of Evans and Budinger. This gives them the victory an makes this only the second time since I started going where Trevor Crabb has not won the tournament. The only other time was in 2023 when it was raining the whole day of the finals due to the hurricane that was coming that year.


the first men's semifinal had Chase Budinger and Miles Evans (left) against James Shaw and Chaim Schalk (right)


The second men's semifinal had Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander (left) against Trevor Crabb and Phil Dalhausser (right)


The men's finals had Chase Budinger and Miles Evans (left) against Phil Dalhausser and Trevor Crabb (right)


Your 2025 AVP Manhattan Beach Champions, Chase Budinger and Miles Evans


Your 2025 AVP Manhattan Beach Champion, Miles Evans


Your 2025 AVP Manhattan Beach Champion (and former NBA player), Chase Budinger

    This concludes the men's blog covering the 2025 AVP Manhattan Beach tournament that took place in Manhattan Beach, California. Next will be the League Championships that took place over Labor Day weekend. After that will be NCAA indoor volleyball so if there's a certain team or match up that you'd like me to cover this fall, let me know. If there are other sports or games you'd like to read about, let me know and until next time, Miller out

~J. Miller

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2025 AVP Season Announced!

Image
 Dear Reader~    It's finally here! As you may be able to tell by the title, the 2025 AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) Beach Volleyball season has been announced. For those who aren't familiar with me, I attend the one in Manhattan Beach, California, known as the Manhattan Beach Open or MBO for short, every year and have made a few friends over the years out of some of the players. A few include Travis Mewhirter, Molly Turner, Maddie Anderson, and Melissa Powell. I have gone to the MBO every year since 2021 and I also attended it in 2019. This year I will be attending that same event again so stay tuned for the blog covering that tournament later in the year along with other AVP events this 2025 season.     This year the AVP has 4 Contender events, 2 Heritage events, and 9 League events. The 2024 season had 3 Contender events, 3 Heritage events, and 9 League events. This year places like Huntington Beach and Manhattan Beach stayed as Heritage events...
Read more

Texas A&M @ Nebraska 12-14-2025 WVB Quarterfinals

Image
Dear Readers~     There is another quarterfinals game of the 2025 NCAA Division 1 Women's Indoor Volleyball season that I wanted to cover. Today's game has Nebraska hosting Texas A&M in Lincoln, Nebraska to see who can move on to the semifinals in Kansas City, Missouri the following weekend. We've previously discussed Texas A&M beating TCU in College Station for round 2 and Nebraska beating Kansas in Lincoln for round 3. Now that we've reached the point where the winner moves on to Kansas City and gets to play at the T Mobile Center, who do you think will come out on top: the Cornhuskers from Nebraska or the Aggies from A&M? Let's get into today's game to find out.     Let's see who's coaching A&M and Nebraska. Up first, is the visiting Aggies.  They are coached by Jamie Morrison as Head Coach, Lindsey Walton as Associate Head Coach, Jen Woods as the other Associate Head Coach, Jeff Fiorenza as the General Manager and Assistant Coach, Joe...
Read more

2025 NCAA WVB Selection Show

Image
Dear Readers~     Last week, I covered the final regular season game for the 2025 NCAA Division 1 Women's Indoor Volleyball season. This game had Pittsburg hosting Louisville. Today I'll cover the Selection Show to see who is in the bracket for this year's national championship. 31 teams automatically qualified and a few others got chosen to join them. Just like with the NCAA beach game in the spring, some teams become conference champions and automatically make it to the national championships while others are chosen in the NCAA Selection Show. There are a total of 31 teams who win their conference and are automatically in the championships while that leaves 33 spots available for the other Division 1 teams. The bracket is made up of 64 teams divided into four quadrants of the bracket. This means in order to be the national champions, you have to win a total of 7 games once you play in your first game.     Let's start with the 31 teams who won the automatic bid by w...
Read more