Beach Volleyball Digest: Budinger, Evans solidify partnership; La Paz Challenge filled with Americans
The penultimate partnership domino of major significance for the American men has fallen: Chase Budinger and Miles Evans are officially a team for the 2023 beach volleyball season.
The move seemed to be inevitable, given the players available who have both international and AVP points and a proven ability to win at both levels. Budinger competed with Troy Field in 2022, and after a hot start in Austin, where they made the final and were leading Phil Dalhausser and Andy Benesh until late in the first set, fizzled a bit. That was the only final they’d make, tacking on a pair of thirds and a pair of fifths as well. Internationally, they had one finish better than ninth, a silver at the Maldives Challenge in mid-October.
Evans hopped around in 2022, playing eight AVPs and seven Beach Pro Tour events with five different partners — Ed Ratledge, Andy Benesh, Avery Drost, Logan Webber, and Paul Lotman — to mixed results. He picked up a pair of silvers on the Beach Pro Tour in Futures events with Benesh and Webber, won an AVP Tour Series in Denver with Benesh, and finished third at the Manhattan Beach Open with Benesh. His fourth at the Torquay Elite 16 with Lotman marked his best international finish in terms of points. Lotman, however, is with Silila Tucker — he will be making an appearance on SANDCAST soon — Benesh with Miles Partain, and Webber with Evan Cory.
Everything about the partnership makes sense. Chase Budinger is an excellent left-side blocker –he also proved talented on the right with Field as well, but the majority of his success is on the left — while Evans is an elite right-side defender. Both have international and domestic points. Both have medaled in international events and have won an AVP (Evans’ Tour Series win in Denver is close to the strength of field that AVP San Francisco used to have; if there’s a Tour Series that counts as a legitimate win, it’s Denver).
The only real free agent on the market for the men, then, is Field.
And now we wait.
Kerri Walsh Jennings officially partners with Logan Tom
Last October, NBC ran a story positing that Kerri Walsh Jennings may be making a comeback for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and that she might be making that run alongside Logan Tom, her former teammate at Stanford and one of the all-time greats indoors. Last week, NBC followed up, confirming that Walsh Jennings and Tom will be teaming up on the sand.
“For my last go around competing, I want it to feel really good and feel really special,” Walsh Jennings told NBC. “Logan brings that.
“She’s someone I’ve loved since I met her at Stanford, and she’s just one of my favorite teammates ever. She’s such a champion. So the thought of us getting together just makes us both smile, which is why we’re doing this.”
Walsh Jennings is the most decorated beach volleyball player of all-time, winner of three gold medals with Misty May-Treanor and a bronze alongside April Ross in Rio de Janeiro. Tom is no stranger to Olympics, having competed in four herself on the United States indoor team, winning a pair of silvers in Beijing and London.
AVP La Paz?
The first Challenge event of the 2023 Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour season will be held in La Paz, Mexico, on March 16-19, the same weekend as AVP Miami. Both, however, will look a lot like an AVP.
La Paz’s initial entry list includes nine American mens teams and 13 women. Signed up are Tim Brewster and Kyle Friend, Evan Cory and Logan Webber, Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner, Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander, Miles Evans and Chase Budinger, Bill Kolinske and Hagen Smith, Adam Roberts and Marty Lorenz, Chaim Schalk and Tri Bourne, and Paul Lotman and Silila Tucker. Signed up for the women are Terese Cannon and Sarah Sponcil, Sara Hughes and Kelly Cheng, Kelley Kolinske and Hailey Harward, Megan Kraft and Emily Stockman, Iya Lindahl and Lauren De Turk, Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth, Corinne Quiggle and Sarah Schermerhorn, Jade Race and Makenzie Griffin, Julia Scoles and Betsi Flint, Savvy Simo and Toni Rodriguez, Teegan Van Gunst and Kim Hildreth, Allie Wheeler and Carly Wopat, and Zana Muno and Jessica Gaffney.
If history is an indicator, at least half of those teams, if not more, will drop from La Paz and play Miami, although it’s a bit trickier than usual. Typically, if a team is to drop after the official entry list is published, an injury note is required. However, if an injury note is used, that team wouldn’t be permitted to play in Miami, unless they absorb a fine and answer some questions from USA Volleyball and the FIVB. If anyone is to drop, then, it must be 28 days before the event. That final deadline is February 17.
And also in beach news
The 2023 AVP schedule was announced. See the entire slate and read the analysis here.
And we had the recap of the Doha Elite16, which you can read here.
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