DENVER, Colorado — It’s unusual, for center court to be mostly abandoned, for the volleyball noises, the conversations of the players and referees to be so pronounced, so audible. That is an environment typically relegated to the side courts, where the fans can oftentimes be few and the off-court energy minimal.
This was not so in Denver for this weekend’s AVP Tour Series.
While Alison Cerutti, one of the greatest to ever play the game, commanded no small crowd during his victory with Billy Allen, and Hailey Harward and Kelley Kolinske obliged for every photo and autograph and conversation request after their win, this weekend did not belong to the victors.
No, this weekend belonged to a pair of soft-spoken redheads from Lyons, Colorado, a town 41 miles down the road, population 2,033.
It was Gage and Lars Basey who turned this Tour Series event into an early and rollicking Fourth of July celebration, delivering one monumental upset after another as the crowd, thick with thousands of locals, rained down chants of “Let’s go Baseys!”
Loud enough, in fact, to drown out the music and the commentary on center court, which quickly became a ghost town as word got around of yet another Basey upset in the making.
First it was the Sanders, Taylor and Brenden, the former an Olympian and an AVP Champion, the latter a longtime professional indoors who is making his transition to the beach. Down they went in the ninth-place rounds, stunned 21-19, 17-21, 16-18.
“They made zero mistakes,” Taylor Sander said afterwards with a laugh and a what-can-you-do shrug. “They were perfect.”
Awaiting them in the quarterfinals on Sunday morning was an even taller task: Another AVP champion in Jeremy Casebeer, another Olympian in Alvaro Filho.
Down they went, too.
Trailing 14-11 in the third set, it seemed the magic had alas worn off for the brothers. Lars’ previous best finish was a 17th, in Waupaca a year ago, Gage’s a 13th, also in Waupaca. Already, they had achieved more than could have been reasonably expected. They’d sealed up a fifth, earned their first AVP paycheck, dispatched the Sanders.
Let’s go Baseys.
A sideout, a block, and a successful transition swing from Lars locked it up at 14-14. Delirium in Denver. And then, eight points later, came the rally that lasted a full 90 seconds — digs and soft blocks and scrambles and one-handed punches and pokes…
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