U.S.A., Feb 18, 2022 - It's been 30 degrees in Tallahassee, Fla. lately. A little chilly by the standards of Jeremy Edge, a longtime resident of Fort Lauderdale who has since relocated to Northwest Florida, where he runs Edge Performance Beach Volleyball Club. As for the kids in Tallahassee, however? "They're used to it. When the kids go out for PE, they're in shorts and tank tops," Edge said. "I don't understand. I don't know. So be it."
Cold or warm, rainy or sunny, there is beach volleyball to be played. And juniors all over the country, either in indoor facilities or on the beach, are competing every weekend, vying for bids to AVP Junior Nationals, held July 5-10 this year.
Bids for Junior Nationals, a monstrous tournament featuring the top juniors from around the United States that will be held once more in Hermosa Beach, California, have been awarded beginning as early as December of 2021. Players can earn them from either placing first or second in an AVP America 1-star event, or from finishing in the top four in a 2-star event, like the one being held at the Sand Club in Gilbert, Arizona.
This weekend, bids are on the line across the country, from Port St. Lucie, Florida up to Edge's club in Tallahassee, from Lewisville, Texas to across the desert in Arizona at The Sand Club, even all the way to Queen's Beach on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Because when bids are on the line, the events fill up.
"It's pretty cool. The kids love it. It's kind of like winning a bid to the Olympics for them," said Edge, who expects big things from Landyn Snowden, Olivia Edge, Bailey Hope, and Kelsey Swart, among others, this summer. "They hold the paper up, theyre smiling, theyre cheering, theyre going to a championship."
And they can begin competing for those Olympic moments now. Forty-one total teams, split between U18 and U16, have signed up for the Altitude Volleyball Showcase and 2-Star Junior Qualifier, held in Port St. Lucie, Florida, on February 19. The U18 division is headed by Emma Braticevic and Kendra Brown, Ellie Neville and Ava Lilliquist, and Olivia Chychrun and Rhea Kohl. Leading the seeding for the U16 division is Kylee Mcguirk and Elena Lam, Zoe Taylor and Allison Spittal, and Danielle Hernandez and Molly Marsh.
"We are extremely lucky to have great weather to compete so early in the season," said Kaya Marciniak, a professional player who coaches at Altitude Academy. "The last tournament [at Singer Island] gave us a chance to prepare for our Altitude Volleyball college showcase this weekend."
At 692 Beach in Lewisville, Texas, 20 total teams are registered, split between three divisions. The Relentless qualifier, held in Queen's Beach, is completely full, as is all but the boys U18 division at the Sand Club.
It is easy to see why events like AVP Junior Nationals are such an allure. It's hosted in Southern California, the mecca of beach volleyball. The juniors will be playing on the same courts used by the professionals, often playing and practicing directly next to them. It presents a rare opportunity to play alongside the tier of athlete the juniors aspire to become.
"Nationals is just huge. There are a lot of kids there, Edge said. "It's really neat to have a lot of pro teams playing while the kids are playing. When they're done playing, they get to go watch them. A lot of pro tournaments, they dont have a lot of kids coming up to watch. It's mostly adults. It's pretty neat for the kids to see that if you work hard, you could play at that level. It's a possibility. To see it up close and personal is a huge encouragement. It speaks for itself, seeing the percentage of growth in the game of beach."
Registrations are limited, so players are encouraged to sign up early, and book their hotels, which fill up fast, well in advance.
Registration is open at avpamerica.com
~Travis Mewhirter @trammew
For Dave Palm, there's just something about those New Jersey guys
Singer Island, FL, Feb 15, 2022: - There's just something about those New Jersey guys. The best two-year stretch of Dave Palm's beach volleyball career came partnered with Eric Zaun, a New Jersey native. Together, the two would win three National Volleyball League titles in 2015 and 2016, becoming one of the most formidable teams on tour. This weekend, partnered with Chris Vaughan, another New Jersey guy: Vaughan is from Medford, Zaun from Cherry Hill; the two were close friends, Palm won another, the second stop of East End Volleyball's Sunshine Series, beginning the 2022 season on a victorious note.
"There's something about the Jersey people that I play well with," Palm, 31, said, laughing.
To be clear, Vaughan currently lives in Philadelphia, not New Jersey. Regardless, be it Jersey or Philly, its a long way from Singer Island, Florida long enough that Vaughan and Palm didn't get a practice in prior to their first match on Saturday. It showed, too: Palm and Vaughan lost their first set of the tournament, setting them up for what could have been a very long road through the contenders bracket or a very short weekend. They more than recovered, winning that first match before marching through the rest of the tournament without dropping another set, beating a host of formidable teams in the process: Adam Roberts and Will Hoey, Caleb Kwekel and Max Martin, TJ Jurko and Adam Hartmann, Seain Cook and Logan Webber.
"[Palm's] great. So good. Awesome," Vaughan said. "Our styles of play meshed well strategy-wise, which was cool. He's a little quiet and I'm cool being the hype guy. It lined up pretty well. He's a really good setter so he was able to run all of the stuff I needed."
And Vaughan was, indeed, running a lot of different sets, mostly by necessity. By his estimation, he was served virtually every ball throughout the weekend, "and I am not used to that Florida heat", he said. What he is used to is an indoor facility near his house in Philadelphia where he trains once a week with Shane Donohue, Kris Fraser, and any other locals they can round up. Even though he and Donohue won a tournament two weeks ago, seeing plenty of serves in the process, its still a shock to the system to play five matches in Florida heat in two days, especially when your body is more accustomed to sub-freezing temperatures and snow, not sand, on the ground.
He managed just fine, crediting Montucky Cold Snacks for keeping him fueled throughout. It helped, too, that Palm did much of the defensive work for them, blocking three consecutive balls in the finals against Webber and Cook, which they won, 21-17, 21-15. "It was nuts. I was like, 'Alright, we just need to side out,'" Vaughan said. And side out they did, looking very much like a former partnership that included Palm and a Jersey guy.
True to form, in their championship photo, no smiles were allowed, for smiles, as Zaun was fond of saying, are a sign of weakness.Aside from a single awkward set on Saturday, there were no signs of weakness from Vaughan and Palm. "I'm not making much of it because its still pre-season but its still a good motivator, gives me something to make sure I'm still hitting the gym consistently for, doing my vertical program, Vaughan said. I'm just like Shut up, you haven't done anything yet!"
On the womens side, Kim Hildreth avenged a loss in the previous Sunshine Series finals in Siesta Key, partnering with Kaya Marciniak to defeat Jade Race and Megan Rice. Its the first win of the year for Hildreth, who has become accustomed to doing much of it on tours and in tournaments of all shapes and sizes, from the East End she won this weekend. to previous Dig the Beaches, to AVPNexts.
"Good to get in tournament situations early in the season to put things from practice into game situations," Hildreth said. "Rich [Heiles] always runs a great tournament, always fun to play with one of your best friends."
For Race, who is currently engaged to Adam Roberts, it was a seminal moment: Just her second final in an AVP America event, and certainly the most difficult. She won her pseudo-home tournament, the Myrtle Beach Open, this past fall with Sarah Schermerhorn, but to make a final in Florida, with a steeper field, was no small accomplishment. "This off-season has been good to me," she said.
For full results, head to AVPAmerica.com
AVP Releases Grass, Junior and Semi-Pro Tour Schedules
Irvine, CA, February 9, 2022: Less than a week ago, the AVP alluded, in an auspicious Instagram post, that the summer was about to get a lot longer. And on February 4, it was confirmed that the summer did indeed get substantially longer, as 16 events, the most in a single season since 2009, populate a schedule that will stretch from May to November.
And if the summer is looking a good deal longer, its also about to become a good deal fuller. AVP America, host/partner to thousands of volleyball events across the United States every year, will continue to fill out the schedule for the amateurs, juniors, and a booming rising crop of professionals.
So successful, in fact, have the largest events under the AVP America umbrella been that seven previous AVP America events were elevated to the AVP Tour Series, and another two were promoted to the AVP Pro Series.
"We were left with a big void of AVPNext Events," AVP America Director Wayne Gant said. "Which only made room for more."
Already, AVP America has established new AVPNext events, featuring at least $20,000 in prize money, in San Antonio, Texas (May 21-22), Racine, Wisconsin (July 16-17), Seaside, Oregon (August 13-14), and Laguna Beach, California (September 10-11). One, potentially two, more events are in the works to be added. That, of course, goes alongside the $50,000 in prize money per event for the AVP Tour Series, which is adopting the format of the former AVPNext Gold Events for, at least, this upcoming season.
"It's definitely getting busier, which is our goal," Gant said. "I think things are moving quite well and the future is very bright. Players coming up through the ranks now will really have something to look forward to in the coming years."
And that's not just on the beach, either. It was only two years ago that the AVP began expanding its programming to include the large-scale grass events as a featured element of it's amateur tour. Those featured events included the traditional grass mainstays the Pottstown Rumble and the famed Clash and a few others, but still, there were limited opportunities for grass players to compete for major purses. Now, the Grass Tour features six massive events: The Clash ($20,000), Pottstown ($70,000), The Dig ($20,000), The Smash ($25,000), Greenville Open ($20,000), and Grass Nationals ($25,000) -- $180,000 in total prize money.
Opportunities abound for the juniors, too. Six events, projected to begin in Muskegon, MI and concluding in late November in Clearwater Beach, Florida, fill out a Juniors Tour that will stop in five different states, and the coveted Junior Nationals will be held in Hermosa Beach, California, July 5-10.
In between all of this the AVP Gold, Pro, and Tour Series, the AVPNext Tour, the Grass Tour, the Juniors Tour are all of the usual AVP America haunts, as well.
There is the AVP America Big Money Tour, adding eight confirmed events and another $45,000 in prize money. Gant expects that number to swell as well, projecting potentially 20 tournaments with up to $200,000 total in prize money.
Non-existent is the weekend that does not feature outdoor volleyball of some kind.
Indeed, this summer is a long one, in the best of ways, for beach and grass volleyball players.
And its a full one.