AVP Chicago 2025: League Championships

Dear Readers~

    I hope you enjoyed the coverage of the 2025 AVP Manhattan Beach Open and enjoyed seeing what all I got to see. Here we are concluding the 2025 AVP (Association of Volleyball Professionals) season. This week we cover how the women's championships went followed by the men's. The championships were over Labor Day weekend (August 30th and 31st) at Oak Street Beach in Chicago, Illinois. Ever since I started watching the AVP (with the exception of 2020) Labor Day weekend always held the AVP event in Chicago but it lasted Friday, Saturday, and Sunday compared to just Saturday and Sunday of this event. Before we get into the results, let's see the difference between the League and previous seasons.

     For those who don't know, the league is a little different than the previous AVP seasons. The biggest differences include the scoring and the number of venues/events they have this season. The way the scoring goes is that each set goes to 15 unless the two teams get to 15 and neither has a lead of two points or more meanwhile the previous years had the first two sets play to 21 and only the third set went to 15 but they did still have the lead of two points or more in order to win a set as a rule. With each team playing one game on one day and one game on the following day, that means that only 8 games are played overall between the two days and between both genders but this is the championships so that last part is different. With this being the championships, each team is given at least one game and if you lose your game, your season is over, or in other words, it's a single elimination event (like Huntington Beach back in May to start the 2025 season).

    Let's see all of the women's teams who played in Chicago. To start off the championships, we have the LA Launch, made up of Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft, taking on the San Diego Smash, made up of Geena Urango and Devon Newberry. Both of these sets ended 15-11 in favor of Urango and Newberry and in favor of San Diego and moving them on while Cannon and Kraft were out of the weekend. Next we have the Brooklyn Blaze, made up of Lexy Denaburg and Julia Donlin, taking on the Miami Mayhem, made up of Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw. The first set ended 18-16 (don't forget that a team needs a lead of 2 points or more) in favor of Denaburg and Donlin. The second set ended 15-12, also in favor of Denaburg and Donlin. This moves Denaburg and Donlin onto another game while Shaw and Cheng are done for the weekend. Next we have San Diego's Urango and Newberry taking on the Palm Beach Passion, made up of Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes. The first set ended 15-9 while the second set ended 15-12, both in favor of Melissa and Brandie. This knocks Urango and Newberry out of the weekend and moves Melissa and Brandie on to the next day of play as this was the final game of the first day and also moves them onto the finals the following day.

    The second day was made up of two women's games. The first game had Denaburg and Donlin of Brooklyn taking on Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher of the Austin Aces. The first set ended 15-12 in favor of Nuss and Brasher while the second set ended 20-18 in favor of Denaburg and Donlin. The third set ended 15-9, also in favor of Donlin and Denaburg and moves them on to the finals. With the finals being made up of Donlin and Denaburg taking on Melissa and Brandie, the outcome seemed obvious. The first and second sets both ended at 15-10 and both for the same team. What surprised many was that it was not in favor of Melissa and Brandie but instead in favor of Donlin and Denaburg. This makes Julia Donlin and Lexy Denaburg your 2025 AVP women's champions and the champions of the first AVP league season!

Here is the schedule and bracket for the women's games

    Now let's see how the men do. The first game of day one was the New York Nitro, made up of Taylor Sander and Taylor Crabb, against the Miami Mayhem, made up of James Shaw and Chaim Schalk. The first set ended at 15-11 in favor of Shaw and Schalk while the second set ended at 15-8 in favor of Crabb and Sander, causing a third set. The third set ended 15-9, in favor of Shaw and Schalk, knocking Sander and Crabb out of the weekend. Next up we have the LA Launch, made up of Hagen Smith and Logan Webber, taking on the San Diego Smash, made up of Chase Budinger and Miles Evans. The first set was intense, ending at 19-17, in favor of Webber and Smith, while the second set ended at 15-13, also in favor of Webber and Smith, knocking Budinger and Evans out of the tournament. The next game of the weekend was also the final game of the first day. This game had Shaw and Schalk, of Miami, taking on Phil Dalhausser and Trevor Crabb of the Palm Beach Passion. The first set ended at 15-7 while the second set ended at 15-10, both in favor of Crabb and Dalhausser and knocking Shaw and Schalk out of the tournament while Crabb and Dalhausser move on to the finals the following day.

    The second day started with Smith and Webber, of LA, taking on Andy Benesh and Miles Partain, of the Dallas Dream. The first set ended 15-10 in favor of Benesh and Partain, while the second set ended 15-13 in favor of Smith and Webber, causing a third set. The third set ended very close at 19-17 in favor of Smith and Webber. This not only moves them on to the finals but also knocks Benesh and Partain out of the tournament. The men's finals were made up of Smith and Webber, of LA, taking on Dalhausser and Crabb, of Palm Beach. The first set ended 15-12 in favor of Crabb and Dalhausser. The second set ended much closer at 16-14 and also in favor of Dalhausser and Crabb, making them the men's champions of the 2025 AVP league season.

Here we have the men's bracket going into the weekend

This was the schedule for the final weekend of the 2025 AVP season

    

    This not only concludes today's coverage of the championships in Chicago's Oak Street Beach, but also concludes the 2025 AVP season. Did you like how the AVP did on the League or did you prefer how it was in previous years? Would you read my coverage next year if they did the League again next year? This concludes the final week of getting two volleyball blogs as next week I will only being doing NCAA indoor now that the AVP season has concluded so if there's a certain indoor team  or game you'd like covered, let me know. What city was your favorite? Until next time, Miller out

~J. Miller