Storylines to watch for this weekend

AVP New Orleans, the second event of the AVP’s 2023 season, begins with Thursday’s qualifier and ends with Sunday afternoon’s finals.
Whether you’re attending in person, streaming, or simply following online, here are the top storylines to watch this weekend.
There is also the Volleyball World Challenge in Saquarema, Brazil, this weekend, and a handful of USA players are there, affecting the men’s field more than the women’s.

Can Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth defend their home AVP?

New Orleans is becoming something of a required stop on the AVP, mostly because two of its brightest talents reside just a short drive from Coconut Beach, site of this weekend’s tournament, which begins with Thursday’s qualifier. Louisiana has a passion for its sports teams that goes far beyond anything you’ll see in California, and Nuss and Kloth are very much a Louisiana sports team, even if Kloth, a South Dakotan by birth, is an adopted child of the Bayou. The LSU products lost in last year’s title match at Coconut to Kelly Cheng and Betsi Flint. They’ll enter as the No. 4 seed, behind Cheng and Sara Hughes, Miami champs Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes, and Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles.

Toni Rodriguez back in New Orleans after breakout yet season-ending event

It’s difficult to properly summarize what New Orleans last year was for Toni Rodriguez and Savvy Simo. A breakout event? An unbelievably unfortunate one? Positive? Negative? All of the above.

Rodriguez, who is from Gonzales, Louisiana, and spent six years at LSU on both the indoors and beach teams, and UCLA-product Simo won their first two matches last year, earning a berth into the quarterfinals, where they met Nuss and Kloth in a hometown matchup. Even before the quarterfinal, it was the best career finish for both, and the first time they’d compete on a Sunday. Until they didn’t. Rodriguez re-injured one of her oft-injured knees, and that was that, for the entire season. Now Rodriguez is back, playing perhaps the best volleyball of her career. In two events this season, Rodriguez and Simo have qualified for a pair of main draws in Volleyball World Challenges in La Paz and Itapema, winning a silver medal in the former. Even as the No. 12 seed in New Orleans, they’re poised for another breakout event.