The 2025 AVP League begins this weekend at the Delray Beach Tennis Center in Palm Beach, Florida. Below are the eight teams, with breakdowns and previews of each.
Austin Aces
Kristen Nuss, Taryn Kloth
Wyatt Harrison, Avery Drost
As a college coach for Florida State, one aspect of this team particularly stands out to me: a near-lock of a win. Those are invaluable at the college level, and, given the team type of format with the League, it is invaluable here as well. Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth are the best team in the world, and there is little room for debate about that matter. In four tournaments this season, they have three international medals and one AVP title, in Huntington Beach. They are as close to a lock as one can get for a point.
Avery Drost and Wyatt Harrison are no such lock, but they are certainly a better pair than many may have thought (hand raised). A third-place finish at one of the two qualifiers in Huntington Beach and a critical fifth at the Huntington Beach Heritage event put Harrison and Drost into the League. This will be Drost’s second League season, having played on the Palm Beach Passion a year ago with Phil Dalhausser, while Harrison, a talented youngster who can block and defend with equal measure, is making his debut.
Brooklyn Blaze
Seain Cook, Brian Miller
Julia Donlin, Lexy Denaburg
Seain Cook and Cody Caldwell, alongside Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft, made for arguably the most entertaining team of the 2024 AVP League. Issue was, they just weren’t very good. They missed on the playoffs, although they won the hearts of a good many fans. Now Cook is playing some of his finest ball defending for League newbie Brian Miller, having made the finals in each of the AVP League qualifiers.
Julia Donlin and Lexy Denaburg remain one of the most intriguing new partnerships of the 2025 season. Still trying to find a consistent rhythm, they have played remarkably well, winning the second AVP League qualifier to clinch their spot, and have thrown in a few duds, as when they lost in the first round of the AVP Heritage event or failed to qualify for the Quintana Roo Elite16. Rest assured, however, that nobody – not one person – will take this pair, the most physical women’s team in the U.S., lightly.
Dallas Dream
Andy Benesh, Miles Partain
Hailey Harward, Kylie DeBerg
The incumbent runners-up, the Dallas Dream will only be better in year two than they were in year one, and will enter as the odds-on favorites to make the finals again. Andy Benesh and Miles Partain were untouchable at the AVP Huntington Beach Heritage event, winning in a clean sweep, and are clearly the best men’s team in America.
Hailey Harward and Kylie DeBerg are going about their 2025 season in a fascinating matter, playing together in the AVP League while splitting for international play, where Harward is teaming up with Molly Phillips and DeBerg with Toni Rodriguez. It’s working well enough, as DeBerg is coming off her first gold medal at the Xiamen Challenge, and together they finished fifth at the Huntington Heritage tournament and nearly stunned Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth.
LA Launch
Hagen Smith, Logan Webber
Terese Cannon, Megan Kraft
This is the wild card team of 2025. Hagen Smith and Logan Webber enter their third year as partners, and their time together appears to be paying off. They won the first AVP League qualifier and made it look easy, winning every set, clinching their spot with minimal stress. Whether they can sustain that type of performance remains the question, as their play internationally has been up and down, with notable wins and middling losses.
Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft, too, enter their third year together as partners, and their time together has no doubt paid off. Currently the hottest team in the world not named Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth, Cannon and Kraft put together a run of five straight Beach Pro Tour medals, something no team did in 2024. They carried that play to the U.S., where they took second at the Huntington Beach Heritage tournament, and enter as either the second or third best women’s team in the League alongside Canadians Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes.
Miami Mayhem
James Shaw, Chaim Schalk
Molly Shaw, Kelly Cheng
The Mayhem will hereby be renamed to Team Power Couple. Four players, four notable beach volleyball relationships. James Shaw is married to Molly Shaw, and they have both made the semifinals of Elite16s with their respective partners. Kelly Cheng, the 2023 World Champ, is married to longtime coach Jordan Cheng, who is at the top of the coaching ladder in the sport. Schalk is dating Toni Rodriguez, herself in the League and a gold medalist on the Beach Pro Tour in 2025.
This would make for as much an entertaining reality TV show as it would a beach volleyball team, but as it stands, this much is known: This is a damn good beach volleyball team. Cheng and Shaw twice finished third in the qualifying events, and can certainly compete with any team in the world. Already, they’ve beaten Paris Olympic gold medalists Ana Patricia and Duda. Shaw and Schalk, too, can beat the best teams in the world, having stunned Sweden’s David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig in the Quintana Roo Elite16, where they’d win bronze.
New York Nitro
Corinne Quiggle, Megan Rice
Taylor Crabb, Taylor Sander
Between Taylor Crabb, Taylor Sander, and Megan Rice, you have three of the livest arms in American beach volleyball. Throw in the absurd ball control and playmaking ability of Crabb, and the craftiness and high IQ of Corinne Quiggle, and you have a bit of everything you’d want in a foursome. Crabb and Sander are coming off a season with the Nitro in which they finished as regular season champs before ending on a listless note, finishing last in the playoffs. Sander is returning from an indoor contract in Indonesia, so it’s possible he’ll be rusty in the sand but unlikely; such a transition has never slowed him before. Crabb, meanwhile, can win with anyone. The new assistant coach at St. Mary’s took a third split-blocking – or split-pulling, really – with Billy Allen at the AVP Huntington Beach Heritage tournament, and he is still very much at the top of his game.
Quiggle and Rice punched their ticket in the first League qualifying event, winning a thriller over Devon Newberry and Jaden Whitmarsh. It’s good to see Quiggle back on the sand after surgery knocked her out of the 2024 season. Rice, though somewhat a veteran, having made the finals of AVP Hermosa, losing, of all people, to Quiggle in the finals, brings a youthful swagger and an ability to make plays that will raise your eyebrows.
Palm Beach Passion
Trevor Crabb, Phil Dalhausser
Melissa Humana-Paredes, Brandie Wilkerson
No player on this team needs any introduction. Here you have the Paris Olympic silver medalists in Brandie Wilkerson and Melissa Humana-Paredes, one of the greatest blockers of all-time in Phil Dalhausser, and the AVP’s resident villain in Trevor Crabb, whose ability to side out without ever needing to rely on pure power remains the envy of beach players all over.
The Passion will enter 2025 as the favorite to win the League, with their stiffest competition coming from perhaps the Dallas Dream.
San Diego Smash
Chase Budinger, Miles Evans
Toni Rodriguez, Geena Urango
The inaugural AVP League Champs bring everyone back to San Diego. Their run from dead last to squeaking into the playoffs to winning the whole damn thing remains one of the more entertaining elements of the 2024 AVP League, which seemed a lock to go to the Nitro, who boasted Taylor Crabb, Taylor Sander, and World Champs Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes. Yet the Smash made the Cinderella story happen, punctuated by an MVP nod to Geena Urango, the veteran who somehow continues getting better with each year.
Like Kylie DeBerg and Hailey Harward, Toni Rodriguez and Urango will split their time as partners, playing domestically together while going apart when Rodriguez plays internationally – and in a different position – with DeBerg. How it will affect them remains to be seen, but Rodriguez is playing the best volleyball of her career, and Urango hasn’t aged a day in 10 years.
Chase Budinger and Miles Evans, meanwhile, have continued their ascent to the No. 2 spot in the U.S.A., finishing second at the AVP Huntington Heritage event while competing well overseas. Already, they are in the driver’s seat to qualify for the World Championships later this year, tacking on another huge accomplishment in a partnership full of them.
