HERMOSA BEACH, Ca. — Tri Bourne couldn’t do it. Even if it made sense — and, depending on whom you ask, it did make sense — he couldn’t skip this weekend’s AVP Hermosa Beach Open, which begins tomorrow and ends with Sunday’s finals at the Hermosa Beach Pier. Even with the Gstaad Elite16 this weekend, even with Olympic points on the line, the highest level in the sport, the most coveted tournament on the international calendar, there was no rationalizing skipping the event he can walk to. An event with a deep and rich history.
How could he possibly fly to Switzerland when he could walk five blocks south and two blocks west and play in front of a home crowd of thousands?
Turns out, he couldn’t. He and Chaim Schalk stayed home, remaining the top seed in this weekend’s Hermosa Beach Open, where they will be the odds-on favorites to win.
It was Schalk who won this event a year ago. It was the second event for he and Theo Brunner, and they had no easy road, meeting Bourne and Trevor Crabb in the seventh-place rounds, Paul Lotman and Miles Partain in the semis, and Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander in the finals.
It was their first and only AVP win as a team.
This weekend, he and Bourne are seeking their second, while Trevor Crabb and Brunner seek their first, in just their second AVP as a team.
It’s a fully-loaded event this weekend for the men. The only team who skipped Hermosa for Gstaad is Andy Benesh and Miles Partain, who have been rewarded in kind, stunning Anders Mol and Christian Sorum in the opening round of pool play, the first American team to top the Norwegians on the FIVB since 2017. Aside from Benesh and Partain, however, everyone is here — Bourne and Schalk, Brunner and Trevor Crabb, Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander, Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, the new pairing of Troy Field and Evan Cory, fresh off a gold medal in the Helsinski Futures. There are legends deep in the seeding in Phil Dalhausser, blocking for Avery Drost, and Alison Cerutti, at the net for Billy Allen.
As for the women, it’s an event marked by parity. The top four teams in the country — Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes, Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth, Sarah Sponcil and Terese Cannon, and Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles — are all in Gstaad. It makes Hailey Harward and Kelley Kolinske the one seed for the second event in a row. It boded well enough for their…
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