Ep. 1: Hermosa Beach Open — Champions Crowned in Chicago

Tori: What's up, volleyball world. You're listening to Sideout AI. The week in beach volleyball. Served every Friday. I'm Tori.

Cooper: And I'm Cooper. Coming to you from St. Petersburg, Florida. Big show today. Champions crowned in Chicago. A legend returns in Aspen. Australia punches its ticket to the Olympics. And this weekend. Hermosa Beach. One hundred fifty thousand dollars on the line. Let's get into it.

Tori: Quick word from our sponsor. Sideout AI is presented by Meta Muse. The AI that helps you plan, build, and get things done. More on that later. First. The headlines.

Cooper: Chicago. The AVP League championships. Oak Street Beach. September fifth and sixth. And we have new champions.

Tori: On the women's side. The Austin Aces. Taryn Brasher and Kristen Cruz. They beat the Palm Beach Passion. Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes. Fifteen ten. Fifteen twelve. Straight sets. Clinical.

Cooper: That was a statement. Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes are one of the most decorated pairs in the world. And Brasher and Cruz just walked through them. No third set needed.

Tori: And the men. Also the Palm Beach Passion. Trevor Crabb and Phil Dalhausser. Over the New York Nitro. James Shaw and Chaim Schalk. Fifteen ten. Fifteen eleven. Another straight setter.

Cooper: Dalhausser and Crabb. That's a reunion with some history. And they looked like they never split up. Big blocks. Smart shots. They controlled that final from the first serve.

Tori: But the match of the weekend happened one round earlier. Saturday. The semifinals.

Cooper: Fourth seeded Shaw and Schalk. Against the number one seed. Andy Benesh and Taylor Crabb. The Miami Mayhem. Seven and one on the season. The reigning Manhattan Beach champions.

Tori: And Shaw and Schalk took them down. Seventeen fifteen. Fifteen thirteen. A three seed gap. Number four over number one.

Cooper: That is the biggest upset of the AVP League season. Benesh and Crabb had been the best team all summer. And the Nitro just ended it. In straight sets.

Tori: What a run for those two. Alright. Let's go to the mountains.

Cooper: The fifty third Mother Lode Volleyball Classic. Koch Park in Aspen. Finals on Monday, September seventh. This tournament went away for a while. Now it's back. And this year it carried the AVP Contenders designation. The mountains delivered.

Tori: Men's final. Gage Basey and Thomas Hurst. Over Wyatt Harrison and Charlie Siragusa. Two sets to none. Basey is a Colorado kid. Winning in front of a home crowd. You love to see it.

Cooper: Basey and Hurst are young. And they're fearless. They came into Aspen and beat a field full of veterans. Remember that name. We'll come back to him.

Tori: Women's final went the distance. Ella Connor and Molly Shaw. Over Macy Jerger and Tory Paranagua. Two sets to one.

Cooper: Shaw collects another one. She is on an absolute heater right now. And keep those names in your head. Jerger and Paranagua. Connor. Because a few of them are in Hermosa this weekend.

Tori: Oh we'll get there. But first. The World Tour. And a correction.

Cooper: Yeah. We owe you one. In our first episode we told you the men's final in Montreal was all Brazilian. It wasn't. Let's set the record straight.

Tori: The Elite Sixteen in Montreal. August twentieth through twenty third. Women's gold. Brazil. Thamela Coradello and Victoria Lopes. They beat the Americans. Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher. Nineteen twenty one. Twenty one eighteen. Fifteen twelve. A three set battle.

Cooper: And notice that. Cruz and Brasher lost that final in Montreal. Then came back and won Chicago two weeks later. That's how you respond.

Tori: Men's gold in Montreal. Norway. Anders Mol and Christian Sorum. Over Brazil's Andre Stein and Renato Lima. So. Norway over Brazil. Not Brazil over Brazil. Our bad.

Cooper: And the bigger story on the World Tour is the road to L A. Twenty twenty eight. Olympic qualification is officially on.

Tori: Big news out of China. Sunday, September sixth. The Asian Beach Volleyball Championships. Shangluo. Australia's Mark Nicolaidis and Izac Carracher. The three seeds. They beat their countrymen. Thomas Hodges and Ben Hood. Twenty one seventeen. Seventeen twenty one. Fifteen twelve.

Cooper: And that win locks up an Olympic quota spot for Australia. For the national committee. The women did it too. Stefanie Fejes and Taliqua Clancy. They won the women's side. And secured the women's quota. Australia is going to L A.

Tori: Brazil booked spots as well. Andre Stein and Renato Lima. And Thamela and Victoria. Through the South American championships. The qualification race is heating up. And it's only just starting.

Cooper: Alright. The main event. Hermosa Beach.

Tori: The Wedbush Hermosa Beach Open. Third annual. September tenth through thirteenth. Hermosa Beach, California.

Cooper: And let's be clear about what this is. This is not the AVP. Not the AVP Next. This is an independent pro tournament. Put on by Day at the Beach Events. Presented by Wedbush Securities.

Tori: The backstory is great. When it didn't look like any AVP event was coming to Hermosa, Wedbush stepped up and built one themselves. Three years later it's one of the biggest independent events in the sport.

Cooper: And they built a big one. One hundred fifty thousand dollars. Seventy five thousand for the women. Seventy five thousand for the men. Free admission all four days. Free global livestream on their site.

Tori: Thirty two men's teams. Thirty two women's teams. True double elimination. Thursday was qualifying. The main draw started today, Friday. And it runs through Sunday. Finals Sunday afternoon. Women around one. Men around two. Pacific time.

Cooper: Thursday's qualifiers had drama. Eight spots per gender. On the women's side, Macy Jerger and Tory Paranagua came through as the top qualifier seed. Fresh off that Aspen final. Straight into another main draw.

Tori: Ellie Davis and Chloe Hoffman survived a three setter. Fifteen thirteen in the third. Over Gebhard and Lindstrom. Gutsy.

Cooper: Men's side. The upset of qualifying. Cole Aidnik and Kyle Baily. The sixteen seeds. They knocked out the top seeded Brazilians. Pedro Ribeiro and Lucas Silva.

Tori: And William Rivera and Diego Rosich. The twenty three seeds. Came back from a set down. Seventeen twenty one. Twenty one fourteen. Fifteen thirteen. That's how you earn a weekend.

Cooper: Now the storylines. Because this field is loaded.

Tori: Start with the defending women's champions. Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw won this thing last year. Beat Megan Rice and Geena Urango in the final. But neither pair is intact this year.

Cooper: Cheng is back. With a new partner. Megan Kraft. Who took third here last year with Terese Cannon. So the defending champ is going for three in a row. With someone new.

Tori: And they're already dangerous together. Bronze at the Elite Sixteen in Joao Pessoa this year. Top tens in Ostrava and Brasilia. They are live.

Cooper: And Shaw? She's here too. With Brecht Piersma. Straight off that Aspen title with Ella Connor. Shaw is collecting partners and trophies like it's nothing right now.

Tori: Men's side. The twenty twenty four champs. Chase Budinger and Miles Evans. They split. Budinger is with Trevor Crabb. Fresh off that AVP League title. Evans is with Alex Ranghieri. The Italian.

Cooper: And last year's men's finalists. Chaim Schalk and James Shaw lost to Alison and Alvaro Filho in the final. This year they're on opposite sides of the net. Schalk with Stefan Boermans. Shaw with Wyatt Harrison.

Tori: And get this. They just played each other in the AVP League final in Chicago. Schalk and Shaw lost that one too, to Crabb and Dalhausser. Now they might run it back in Hermosa. With new partners. The rematch energy is real.

Cooper: Plus the Aspen champs. Basey and Hurst. Straight from the mountains to the beach. Momentum is real. And young legs in a double elim grind matter.

Tori: Don't forget the internationals. The Dutch pair Raissa Schoon and Katja Stam. The Canadians Kemp and Rahnavard, who came through qualifying. This thing has flavor.

Cooper: So who wins it? Let's make our picks.

Tori: Women's side. Give me Cheng and Kraft. Defending champ. New partner with a bronze already. Home sand. The three peat is on.

Cooper: I'll go a different direction. Give me the team that just won Aspen. Molly Shaw and Brecht Piersma. Shaw is the hottest player on the planet right now. I'm riding the heater.

Tori: Men's side. This one's wide open. Give me Budinger and Trevor Crabb. Two guys who know how to win big matches. Crabb just won Chicago. Budinger has won everything.

Cooper: I'll take the Aspen champs. Basey and Hurst. Young legs. Nothing to lose. All momentum. Sometimes the moment just picks you.

Tori: Alright. Time for our Player Spotlight of the Week. Presented by Meta Muse.

Cooper: And it has to be Kelly Cheng.

Tori: Two time Olympian. Ninth in Tokyo with Sarah Sponcil. Fifth in Paris with Sara Hughes. Twenty twenty three world champion. Twenty twenty two World Tour Finals champion.

Cooper: And Hermosa is her house. She won it in twenty twenty four. Won it again in twenty twenty five with Molly Shaw. Now she's back with Megan Kraft. Going for three straight.

Tori: What's wild is the timing. She and Kraft just started playing together this year. Bronze in Joao Pessoa. Top tens in Ostrava and Brasilia. They're still figuring each other out. And they're already contenders everywhere they go.

Cooper: That's what the greats do. They make new partnerships look easy. If she three peats this weekend, with a second different partner, that's a legacy weekend. That's the kind of thing people talk about for years.

Tori: Kelly Cheng. Our Player Spotlight of the Week. Presented by Meta Muse.

Cooper: That's the show. What a week. Chicago crowned champions. Aspen's legend returned. Australia is going to the Olympics. And Hermosa's main draw is happening right now.

Tori: Finals Sunday afternoon. Free stream on their site. Don't miss it. Next week, the AVP heads to Laguna. September eighteenth through twentieth. We'll have Hermosa results and a look ahead.

Cooper: Subscribe to Sideout AI wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Friday.

Tori: I'm Tori.

Cooper: And I'm Cooper. See you on the sand.