Within the hands-down marquee matchup of Week 4 within the AVP League, Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss of the Austin Aces renew their red-hot rivalry with Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, representing the Palm Seaside Ardour.
The League rolls to the Lone Star State for its fourth beach-volleyball rodeo, enjoying indoors for a second consecutive week, on the 8,700-seat H-E-B Middle at Cedar Park in suburban Austin, Texas, on Saturday night time and Sunday afternoon.
Doubleheaders in every session will function the Aces, Ardour, LA Launch and Brooklyn Blaze, the groups that had been idle final weekend. The Blaze (1-3) and Launch (1-3) haven’t performed because the opening week in Los Angeles. The Aces (2-2) and Ardour (1-3) noticed motion in the course of the second go-round in South Florida.
A 4-0 weekend by any of the groups would put it within the dialog for one of many 4 postseason spots and the bonus prize cash that goes with it. All eight squads may have performed 4 video games (with males’s and girls’s matches in every) on the midway level within the League after the occasion in Texas. The New York Nitro are in first place at 7-1, the Miami Mayhem and Dallas Dream are 5-3 and the San Diego Smash are 2-6.
The video games might be streamed dwell on the free Bally Reside app and ballylive.com, and the matches might be archived on the AVP’s free YouTube channel shortly after they’re accomplished.
The extremely anticipating showdown between Kloth and Nuss (2-0 within the League) and Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson (1-1) on Saturday night time options two of the world’s premier girls’s pairs. U.S. Olympians and the Manhattan Seaside Open champions, TKN (as they’re identified) are 8-6 all-time in opposition to Mel and Brandie, the silver medalists within the Paris Olympics. However the wildly well-liked Canadian pair has received the final three conferences, together with the AVP Huntington Seaside last, the Spherical of 16 within the Olympics and the AVP Chicago title match.
Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson will face one other tough check on Sunday afternoon in opposition to the Launch’s Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles (1-1), the MBO runners-up. Mel and Brandie are 5-0 all-time in opposition to Flint-Scoles, however three of the victories went to a tie-breaking set. Betsi and Julia are matched in opposition to up-and-comers Megan Kraft (the NCAA seashore participant of the 12 months in 2023 and ‘24) and Terese Cannon of the Blaze on Saturday, whereas TKN performs Kraft-Cannon (0-2) on Sunday.
Over on the lads’s aspect, the one pair with a League “W” is the Blaze’s Cody Caldwell and Seain Cook dinner, who swept the U.S. Olympians Chase Budinger and Miles Evans of the Smash after dropping to the Nitro’s Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander.
This can be a weekend to make hay in cattle nation for what appears to be an evenly matched group. Seeking to get into the victory column are the Ardour’s Phil Dalhausser and Avery Drost, the Aces’ Paul Lotman and Billy Allen and the Launch’s Tim Bomgren and Troy Discipline. It doesn’t appear exterior the realm of risk that the entire males’s duos may go 1-1.
Cook dinner advised us that he discovered a precious lesson about being able to play 15-point “velocity” units in the course of the League’s debut.
“We performed very well in opposition to Chase and Miles,” mentioned Cook dinner, Scotland’s reward to the AVP. “However after we (had been bounced by the Taylors), I went to Cody and apologized for not bringing the quantity of vitality crucial for these 15-point units. It ought to be go-go-go, however in our first match, I used to be somewhat hesitant. Then on Sunday, it was proper from the rip, full blast. Huge distinction.”
Cook dinner agreed that this was “Transferring Weekend,” to steal a phrase from golf, for the Blaze, in addition to the opposite three groups.
“It’s actually an enormous weekend for us,” he mentioned. “We’re our matchups and see a possibility. Yeah, our matches is likely to be winnable, however all people’s going to see them that approach. It makes it extra of a strain weekend. The opposite (League dates) it’s like, ‘Oh, we’ll see what we will make occur. If we will steal a win, that will be superb.’ However not this weekend.”
One of the crucial entertaining gamers within the AVP, Cook dinner broke down the upcoming matches in opposition to Bomgren-Discipline and Allen-Lotman.
“We misplaced to Tim and Troy within the semifinals at Waupaca (a Contenders Collection occasion), and Cody and I’ve by no means performed in opposition to Paul and Billy. However they’re serving very well, ripping a number of aces. So each of those matches are going to be battles.”
Listed below are the lineups on the H-E-B Middle at Cedar Park for the fourth of eight regular-season AVP League weekends:
Saturday
Brooklyn Blaze (1-3) vs. LA Launch (1-3)
Girls (6 p.m. Central): Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon (Blaze, 0-2) vs. Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles (Launch, 1-1).
Males (7 p.m.): Cody Caldwell and Seain Cook dinner (Blaze, 1-1) vs. Tim Bomgren and Troy Discipline (Launch, 0-2).
Austin Aces (2-2) vs. Palm Seaside Ardour (1-1)
Males (8 p.m.): Paul Lotman and Billy Allen (Aces, 0-2) vs. Phil Dalhausser and Avery Drost (Ardour, 0-2).
Girls (9 p.m.): Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss (Aces, 2-0) vs. Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson (Ardour, 1-1).
Sunday
LA Launch vs. Palm Seaside Ardour
Girls (1 p.m. Central): Flint-Scoles (Launch) vs. Humana-Paredes-Wilkerson (Ardour).
Males (2 p.m.): Bomgren-Discipline (Launch) vs. Dalhausser-Drost (Ardour).
Brooklyn Blaze vs. Austin Aces
Males (3 p.m.): Caldwell-Cook dinner (Blaze) vs. Lotman-Discipline (Aces).
Girls (4 p.m.): Kraft-Cannon (Blaze) vs. Kloth-Nuss (Aces).
The outcomes from every match within the sequence will depend towards figuring out the 4 qualifiers for the bracket-style championship rounds on Nov. 9 and 10 on the Dignity Well being Sports activities Park in Carson, California. Every staff will play 4 regular-season video games. The primary criterion for advancing to the playoffs is staff profitable share.
Roll photographs
— The most important variety of cumulative views logged for a video of any AVP League match on the YouTube Channel is 22,000. The pair that has been hottest among the many YouTube channel viewers is Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander of the Nitro. Their 4 full-match movies have recorded 17,000, 17,000 (in Week 3), 18,000 and the aforementioned 22,000 (in Week 1)
— In distinction, the AVP was seen by tons of of 1000’s on nationwide TV in the course of the 2024 Heritage Collection. The Manhattan Seaside Open finals on the printed Ion channel had a total-average viewership of 299,000 and the title matches from the Chicago Heritage Collection occasion had been watched by a mean of 215,000 on the over-the-air CW Community.
— By means of three League weekends, two-set matches have ranged between 26 and 40 minutes, and three-setters between 44 and 56. Two-thirds of the matches (16 to eight) have completed in two units. All units within the League are performed to fifteen factors (win by two).
