MANHATTAN BEACH, CA. — Five years ago, Taylor Crabb hit the perfect swing. The right swing. An untouchable swing. A bullet down the angle around Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena that would have sealed the 2018 Manhattan Beach Open title.
It might be the most haunting swing in the past half-decade on the AVP Tour.
It landed no more than half an inch out, one of Crabb’s only blemishes on an otherwise scintillating final. One does not simply give Phil Dalhausser second life — not Sunday Phil, and especially not Sunday Phil at the Manhattan Beach Open. He and Nick Lucena would come back, from down 18-20 in the second set — after losing 12-21 in the first — to winning, 22-20, 15-13.
In the ensuing four years, Crabb would watch his brother, Trevor, win three straight Manhattan Beach Open titles. He’d watch his good friend, Tri Bourne, win two.
Taylor hadn’t even made it back to the finals.
“It hurts my soul,” Jake Gibb once said, “that Taylor isn’t on the Pier yet.”
All is right with Gibb’s soul. All is right in the beach volleyball world.
Taylor Crabb is on the Manhattan Beach Pier.
He and Taylor Sander exorcised every last demon from the past two years in a single tournament, culminating in a 27-25, 21-16 victory over Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner. It’s a victory that is equal parts thrilling and cathartic, alas finding a way to beat the team for which that had no answer for the previous two seasons, and doing so at the most opportune time, on the sport’s biggest annual stage.
“Trev and Theo, they’ve had our numbers all year,” Sander said after, doused in a mix of Kona brew and rain.
The day started early on Manhattan Beach. With a storm headed to Southern California sure to bring, at the least, a lot of rain, the AVP chose to start at 7 a.m. Sunday. Subsequently, the title matches were not streamed live on either ESPN+ or the Bally Live app, but were shown later Sunday in their regularly scheduled time slot on ESPN2. And even that was delayed a few minutes as a pro softball game finished up.
As a team, Taylor Crabb and Sander were 1-9 against Trevor Crabb and Brunner, discounting a forfeit at the Espinho Challenge earlier this summer. They had lost once in Huntington and twice in Hermosa, including the finals. It was Trevor and Brunner who knocked them out in Atlanta and who sent them into the…
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