Sophie Bukovec’s “not exactly seamless” last three seasons have taught her the player she wants to be

HERMOSA BEACH, California — Sophie Bukovec has not been partnered with Heather Bansley long. A mere seven tournaments over the course of eight months. Like any good teacher — and Bansley, a two-time Olympian and three-time Best Defensive Player, is, make no mistake, a fine teacher — Bansley has taught Bukovec much in the words she has said to her new partner.

And, like any good teacher, she has taught her just as much by what she hasn’t.

The last three years have been, as Bukovec said on SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, “not exactly seamless.” First, there was the partnership with Brandie Wilkerson, a pairing that resembled a shooting star: burning bright and brief as a candle. A silver medal at the World Championships proved to Bukovec, and to the rest of the world, that she did have an impressive ceiling as a defender, a position she had never before played professionally. When Wilkerson turned to Melissa Humana-Paredes for the Paris Olympic cycle, Bukovec teamed with Sarah Pavan, the woman with whom Humana-Paredes virtually wrote the Canadian beach volleyball record books.

They were good, too, Bukovec and Pavan. Good enough for three ninths in as many tournaments and a win over Germans Cinja Tillmann and Svenja Muller, the eventual Beach Pro Tour Finals silver medalists. But, as Bukovec admitted, “Sarah and I are hard personalities. Everybody in Volleyball Canada was like ‘This is either going to be incredible or it’s going to hit the fan in a couple of months.’ We’re both exceptionally aggressive people and it was either going to thrive or it wasn’t so we gave it a go and it didn’t go how either of us intended.”

They split after just three tournaments. Pavan eventually found Molly McBain, a young defender out of Florida State, and together they have found success, winning a bronze medal at the Chiang Mai Challenge last fall, Pavan’s first podium since the summer of 2022. For Bukovec, if she wanted to make a legitimate run at the Paris Games, the options were slim, perhaps narrowed down to a single individual.

Heather Bansley.

She’d retired after taking fifth at the Tokyo Olympics, accepting a role as a coach with the Canadian National Team. But maybe, just maybe, there was some competitor left in her. In any event, there was little sense in Bukovec not sending a text. If worst came to worst, Bansley would say no, Bukovec…