The New York Nitro consolidated their lead in the AVP League standings, winning three of four matches over the weekend in damp South Florida.
The Nitro’s hiccup occurred on Sunday afternoon when Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes came out uncharacteristically flat against up-and-comers Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon of the struggling Brooklyn Blaze and never gained traction while dropping their first League match.
A few days after Hurricane Milton had rumbled across the hard-hit Sunshine State, attendance was more sparse at the outdoor Delray Beach Tennis Center than had been the case in the League’s last two stops indoors in San Diego and Austin, Texas. Fans and players had to weather persistent drizzle and intermittent heavier rainfall on Saturday night and the second game on Sunday afternoon, nationally televised live on CBS Sports Network, got a bit of rain.
The Nitro locked in a playoff spot in running their record to 10-2 and hold a one-game lead in the loss column over the Austin Aces and Dallas Dream (both 5-3). They enjoy a three-game advantage over the 7-5 Miami Mayhem, who went 2-2 in Delray Beach, losing both matches against the Nitro.
The other four League teams are under .500. The playoff hopes of the Blaze and Palm Beach Passion (both 4-8) took hits this weekend. The Mayhem’s April Ross and Alix Klineman, the 2021 Olympic gold-medal pair in Tokyo, dealt a particularly damaging defeat to Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson of the Passion, taking down the reigning Olympic silver medalists from Canada for the second time in League play.
After dropping the opening set 15-13, Ross and Klineman found another gear in the second and third, winning 15-11 and 15-9. The veterans combined for 11 kills on 13 attacks with one error (.769 efficiency) and each served aces in the tiebreaker. Wilkerson was held to .133 hitting (five kills on 15 attempts against three errors) in the match.
“(Mel and Brandie) are a great team, and we have a lot of respect for them,” Klineman said. “We know to beat a great team, we have to play great. We started off a little tense and our coach in the box reminded us to play free. (The match) got back to a little bit more of our playing style, and that’s when we started to turn it around a little bit.”
The Canadians (3-3 in the League) had fired on all cylinders on Saturday night, putting a 15-9, 15-10 beatdown on Kraft and Cannon. Brandie went 9-for-11 with one error (.727) and made four blocks.
USA Olympians Cheng and Hughes had beaten Ross and Klineman 15-13, 15-10 on Saturday. Hughes had a giant match, ringing up nine kills on 11 errorless swings (.818) and digging nine balls.
“The first set was very much back and forth and then Sara made one or two digs at the end and the game was over,” Cheng said. “In the second we served tougher and that was the big factor.”
The dominance by Cheng and Hughes (5-1 in the League) the night before might have set them up for a letdown against Kraft and Cannon, who did everything right in a 15-12, 15-9 victory that lifted the Blaze pair’s record to 2-4.
Jordan Cheng, the coach for Cheng and Hughes and Kelly’s husband, seemed perplexed by their performance during an in-match sideline interview, saying, “We’re not quite getting the response we need.”
The wheels fell off at 10-9 of the second set for the reigning world champions. They scored no more points, while Kraft served two winners, including a “tape snake” that trickled over the net on match point. The NCAA Player of the Year in 2023 and ‘24, Kraft (four aces overall) was particularly effective on the over-on-two option while collecting 10 kills on 15 attempts with three errors (.467).
“We just tried to be as aggressive as possible, because that team is really good,” was Kraft’s succinct summation.
The Nitro’s men’s pair of Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander (5-1 in the League) mitigated the damage by winning their two matches, both in tiebreakers after losing first sets.
The popular Taylors got the better of the Mayhem’s Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner (4-2) on Saturday night in another highly entertaining “Crabb boil.” They flipped the script after a lopsided opening set to prevail 8-15, 15-12, 15-11. The second set hinged on a three-point burst that gave the Nitro duo a 12-9 advantage. The younger Crabb brother scored on a hard chop to the sand in transition, Brunner sent a crosscourt shot wide for an error, Crabb followed with an ace on a float serve that split the middle.
Separation for the Taylors came earlier in the third set. A hitting error by Trevor, a stuff block by Theo on the older Crabb sibling, and a highlight-reel play by Sander in which he made an open-hand overhead dig against Trevor and chopped down a crosscourt kill put them up 8-4. Sander hit the spotlight again with a one-armed cover of a block attempt, scoring in transition, for a 14-10 lead.
“Playing Trevor and Theo is always a battle. Trevor and I know each other so well that it’s a chess match,” said Taylor Crabb, who notched 18 kills on 31 attempts with four errors (.452) and made six digs.
The Taylors’ “W” on Sunday afternoon against Cody Caldwell and Seain Cook (2-4) of the Blaze was a dogfight for two sets but the high-jumping Sander turned into a one-man wall in the tiebreaker. The final count was 13-15, 15-13, 15-8, with Sander at one point getting stuff blocks on three of four points after Crabb had abandoned an aggressive-serving strategy and sent the ball over with old-school standing float serves.
Sander notched five rejections for points in the third set (with eight blocks in total) and while going 4-for-4 in kills. Crabb overall hit 13-for-22 with three errors (.455) and made 13 digs.
“I was just out on a rollercoaster riding it,” Sander said of his spate of blocks. “I didn’t play my best, but I found something that worked for me. When you’re not doing something great, you can make up for it in other areas. Taylor and I were just laughing at ourselves out there, because we’re better volleyball players than that. But it’s important that you just grind the wins out and we’re scrappers.”
Crabb lauded his partner for dominating late, while also acknowledging that the pair struggled.
“In the third set, I just had to pop the ball in and he blocked every ball,” he said. Even that was hard – to pop the ball in was hard.”
Cook and Caldwell broke even on the weekend by winning a nail-biter on Saturday night over the Passion’s hard-luck duo of Phil Dalhausser and Avery Drost (1-5). All three sets in the 60-minute tussle were decided by two points and two went into overtime (18-15, 13-15, 16-14). A couple of “one-armed-bandits” digs figured heavily in the tiebreaker. Drost’s stab went over the net on one for a point that knotted the count at 14. Caldwell got a flipper on a sizzling spike by Avery and put the ball away with a nifty drop shot on match point.
Trevor Crabb and Brunner then topped Dalhausser and Drost 15-13, 15-11 on Sunday.
The Mayhem and Blaze complete their regular seasons during Week 6, joining the Dream and Launch, both of whom were idle. The AVP League returns to an indoor venue in Southern California, with doubleheaders scheduled on Oct. 19 and 20 at the new 7,500-set Frontwave Arena in Oceanside.
Here are the lineups for the sixth of eight regular-season AVP League weekends:
Brooklyn Blaze (4-8; Cody Caldwell and Seain Cook, 2-4; Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon, 2-4) vs. Dallas Dream (5-3; Miles Partain and Andy Benesh, 4-0; Hailey Harward and Kylie Deberg, 1-3) .
Miami Mayhem (7-5; Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner, 4-2; April Ross and Alix Klineman, 3-3) vs. LA Launch (3-5; Tim Bomgren and Troy Field, 1-3; Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles, 2-2)..
Blaze vs. Mayhem and Dream vs. Launch.
The results from each match in the series will go toward determining the four qualifiers for the bracket-style championship rounds on Nov. 9 and 10 at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. The first criterion for advancing to the playoffs is team winning percentage.
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