VolleyballMag photographer Mark Rigney was in San Diego and his best shots follow in a gallery.
The fans in Viejas Arena and those watching on the Bally Live stream expected chirping and barking from Trevor Crabb and Chase Budinger, but settled for crickets.
Crabb, the AVP’s resident “bad boy,” was on his best behavior Sunday afternoon, as was Budinger, who had given Trevor “The Shove,” which produced a memorable video clip that instantly went viral on social media.
As both players stuck to volleyball during their AVP League match in San Diego, Crabb and partner Theo Brunner, representing the Miami Mayhem, recorded a workmanlike 15-12, 15-11 victory over Budinger and Miles Evans, playing for the San Diego Smash.
Theo’s intimidating 6-foot-7 presence at the net (three pivotal blocks in the first set) and a spate of attack errors by Evans (who had six in the match while hitting .158) paved the way for the Manhattan Beach Open champions to flip the script on the U.S. Olympians, who had beaten Crabb-Brunner in a three-setter a month ago on Chicago’s Oak Street Beach. That contentious match was peppered with back-and-forth trash talk that culminated with Budinger aggressively shoving Crabb to the sand.
No such fireworks were ignited during Week 3 of the AVP League, which moved indoors for the first time, playing on hard-packed “jumper’s sand” at the spacious basketball venue on the campus of San Diego State.
Trevor and Theo broke open a tight first set late with three “real” points. Crabb scored in transition, tooling former NBA player Budinger’s block, Brunner rejected Evans’ wrist-away “shoot” and Miles’ cross-court spike attempt hit the net and flew wide, putting Budinger-Evans in an inescapable 14-11 hole.
The second set turned earlier, when Budinger and Evans made back-to-back hitting errors that put Crabb-Brunner up 9-5, a four-point advantage that stuck until the end. Trevor and Theo improved to 4-2 all-time against Chase and Miles. Overall, Brunner attacked at .545 efficiency (7-for-11 with one error), while Crabb hit .533 (eight kills on 15 errorless attempts) and made seven digs.
“I always play boring volleyball and just try to do my thing,” Brunner said about the ”Shove” ballyhoo that surrounded the match. “I don’t do well when I get hyped up like that – Trevor does. I kept waiting for some sort of explosion to happen, but it never came.”
In his postmatch comments, Crabb said that dialing down the…
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