Less than a week prior to leaving for the Paris Olympic Games, Chase Budinger was laughing about the way the beach volleyball scheduling can tend to go. Occasionally, you’ll see the same team, over and over and over again, to a comical degree — see: seven matchups against Evandro Goncalves and Arthur Mariano since April of 2023.
And, occasionally, you will only see certain teams in the hotels and restaurants at many of the stops on the Beach Pro Tour, but never on the court.
“We’ve never played Hodges and Schubert,” Budinger said with a laugh, referencing Australia’s No. 1 duo of Thomas Hodges and Zach Schubert.
Evidently he manifested just that, as Budinger and Miles Evans met Hodges and Schubert — the most common rival of Theo Brunner and Trevor Crabb — in the final lucky loser round on Saturday evening in Paris.
And he manifested a win, too, one of the biggest of his career, a 21-19, 21-17 sweep that puts them into the round of 16, where all four USA pairs have now advanced.
“I really think that we just got back to what got us here,” Budinger said. “That’s option the ball, going for our serves, and siding out. That’s what our whole focus was, we were hyper-focused the whole match and that’s what allowed us to be more free.”
It was Budinger’s block who freed up the Americans. Down 17-18 in the first set, Budinger blocked Schubert twice in a row to give the USA a lead they wouldn’t relinquish. And it’s there where Budinger and Evans were perhaps aided by the fact they hadn’t yet played Hodges and Schubert.
Typically, it is Hodges, the former UCI standout, who is the subject of the majority of serves, receiving nearly double the amount of Schubert in 2024, though he is siding out four percent higher.
Yet Budinger and Evans weren’t stuck on the scouting report most other teams have bought into. They adjusted, keeping the pressure on Schubert, who was struggling to navigate the block of Budinger. When it was all said and done, Schubert had 16 kills and 13 errors — as many as Budinger and Evans combined — while Budinger piled up four blocks.
“They love to swing,” Budinger said. “I knew I had to be up there nice and early and I was able to get my hands on some.”
Budinger nearly doubled his total number of blocks for the tournament, which is nearly required in order to beat Australia, a team physical enough to virtually take the defender out of play. When Budinger was needed most, on the sport’s biggest stage, in their first true elimination match of the Olympic Games, he delivered.
“Absolute chills,” he said afterwards, motioning to the 12,000-seat Eiffel Tower Stadium. “This atmosphere is unreal. When you hear those USA chants, nothing is better. When you see those flags waving around, when you see the Eiffel Tower, it’s unreal.”
It only gets more difficult from here. Budinger and Evans will now play Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum, the defending gold medalists from the Tokyo Olympic Games who have been tremendous in Paris, winning six straight sets by a combined 34 points. Budinger and Evans lost their only meeting with Norway, at last July’s Montreal Elite16, 21-8, 21-16.
“We got another shot,” Evans said. “Couldn’t be more excited about it.”
All four USA teams, in fact, have another shot. Andy Benesh and Miles Partain, after finishing second in pool, will play Italy’s Sam Cottafava and Paolo Nicolai in the first round. Though they are the on-paper favorites, Benesh and Partain are 1-2 against the Italians, with whom they spent the week leading up to the Olympic Games training in Italy.
Their last meeting, at the Ostrava Elite16, marked their first win over Cottafava and Nicolai, a 21-16, 17-21, 15-11 victory that paved the way to an eventual bronze medal.
They will play at 8 a.m. Pacific on August 5.
The match after Benesh and Partain vs. Italy? A rematch of the AVP Huntington Beach finals, between Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth and Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson.
How, you may be wondering, is the 2 seed playing the 4 in the first round of elimination? Nuss and Kloth did everything asked of them, winning every match of pool. Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson, however, struggled, dropping to Switzerland’s Zoe Verge-Depre and Esmee Bobner and Latvia’s Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova. Like Budinger and Evans, they required a lucky loser win, over the Czech Republic’s Bara Hermannova and Marie-Sara Stochlova, to advance into the round of 16. They took care of that, 21-15, 21-12.
It is the most intriguing match of the opening round on the women’s side. In 12 previous meetings, Nuss and Kloth are 8-4. Monday will mark the third matchup of 2024.
Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes play first among the USA teams, matched up with Italians Marta Menegatti and Valentina Gottardi as the nightcap on Sunday, August 4.
Cheng and Hughes are 2-1 against the Italians, with all three previous meetings going the full three sets. Their only match this year came in pool play of the Tepic Elite16, where Menegatti, a four-time Olympian, and Gottardi won in three.
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