The San Diego Smash — Geena Urango, Toni Rodriguez, Chase Budinger and Miles Evans — won the inaugural AVP League on Sunday.
There were no NCAA upsets as the top teams all won, including No. 1 Pittsburgh, No. 4 Louisville and No. 5 Creighton and No. 10 SMU defeated No. 25 North Carolina in the only match involving two ranked teams.
Reverse sweeps? Of course: Syracuse did it to visiting Notre Dame in the ACC and Binghamton did it to visiting New Hampshire in a battle for first place in the America East.
Lines of the day: Towson won in four at Stony Brook behind 27 kills from Victoria Barrett, who hit .380 and had two assists, an ace, 18 digs and four blocks, two solo. Texas A&M lost in four at Tennessee, but Logan Lednicky had 27 kills, hit .404 and added nine digs and a block.
San Diego Smash wins AVP League
The San Diego Smash earned the honor of being the first champions of the AVP League, defeating the Dallas Dream in a “Golden Set” tiebreaker on Sunday in Carson, California.
The Smash’s Geena Urango and Toni Rodriguez opened the championship game with a 15-9, 15-9 mauling of Hailey Harward and Kylie Deberg. But the Dream’s Miles Partain and Andy Benesh bested Chase Budinger and Miles Evans 15-12, 15-11 in a battle of the pairs who represented the USA in the Paris Olympics. That meant a Golden Set would break the tie.
Urango-Rodriguez built an 8-5 lead and Budinger-Evans closed out a 15-13 victory, with Chase’s spike scoring the winning point. The Smash came into the playoffs as the No. 4 seed with an 8-8 record in the regular season.
The third-place match, won by the Miami Mayhem over the New York Nitro also was settled in a Golden Set. The Mayhem’s Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner topped Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander in three sets (29-27 in the third) and the Nitro’s Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes swept April Ross and Alix Klineman. Trevor and Theo handed the retiring 2021 Olympic gold medalists a 8-7 edge in the Golden Set, and April and Alix were up to the task in the final competition of their careers, winning 15-12.
Larry Hamel’s full report posts Tuesday along with photos by Jim Wolf.
Also, the team of Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft took home $20,000 after falling 21-17, 21-18 in the gold-medal match to Brazilians Carol Solberg and Barbara…
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