Let there be no doubt: Andy Benesh and Miles Partain are the best beach volleyball team in the United States.
It was – and the past tense is key there – fair to wonder, coming into this past weekend’s AVP Huntington Beach Heritage event, if Benesh and Partain had regained the form that once had them as a top five team in the world. They had initially planned on beginning their beach season at the Ostrava Elite16 at the end of May while Partain finished up playing indoor for UCLA. But a strange snag with the NCAA and Partain’s eligibility ended his indoor campaign before it ever really began, and they took off for the Brasilia Elite16 in mid-April.
The results, as could have been expected at the highest level in the sport on minimal training, were mixed. They swept Chaim Schalk and James Shaw, whose rise through the USA rankings has turned eyebrows, but failed to show a pulse against Poland’s Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak, losing 9-21, 13-21, the most lopsided loss of their partnership. But then they swept Sweden’s youngsters, Jacob Nilsson and Elmer Andersson, and played well against Austrian upstarts Timo Hammarberg and Tim Berger in a three-set loss.
They were good, though far from the form that had them winning three straight Elite medals — far enough that social media became littered with comments wondering just how good Partain could be with Shaw.
This past weekend, the gap closed considerably between where Partain and Benesh are now compared to their ceiling as a team.
Not a single team in four matches drew within two points of Partain and Benesh, en route to one of the easiest – by scoring margin – AVP wins of any team, male or female, in recent memory. To find a win as dominant as Benesh and Partain’s this weekend, you’d have to go back to Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena in Austin of 2018, though even they had a set go 22-20.
The new pairing of Dalhausser and Trevor Crabb fell 21-15, 21-18 in the quarterfinals, white-hot Hagen Smith and Logan Webber bowed out 21-13, 21-12 in the semifinals, and defending AVP League champs Chase Budinger and Miles Evans were swept 21-14, 21-14.
“We were just trying to come out with a lot of energy. Our new coach, coach Theo [Brunner], is trying to get me to be more of a point scorer,” Benesh said. “So that new mindset paid off.”
Rick Atwood photo
Kristen Nuss, Taryn Kloth continue tour de force
No new mindset was needed for Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth. No doubt was needed to be put to rest. Their tour de force through 2025 continued, as they won their second straight tournament, topping familiar finals foes Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft, 21-17, 21-23, 15-9. In four tournaments this season, Nuss and Kloth have finished in the top-three each time, winning bronze at an Elite16 in Mexico, silver in Saquarema, Brazil, gold in Brasilia, Brazil, and the surfboards in Huntington Beach.
2025 AVP League set
With the final of three AVP League qualifiers now wrapped up, the eight teams per gender are set, although who they are playing with and for is still to be determined. Benesh and Partain had already clinched their spot by virtue of making the playoffs as a member of the Dallas Dream alongside Hailey Harward and Kylie DeBerg, who finished fifth in Huntington and pocketed $4,500. Budinger and Evans, too, were already in with their teammates Geena Urango and Toni Rodriguez, who also took fifth in Huntington Beach.
Punching their tickets in Huntington were Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw and Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft. Both teams, having skipped the first qualifier to play in Brazil, needed big finishes, and both got them. Cheng and Shaw narrowly escaped Jaden Whitmarsh and Devon Newberry in the first round (21-23, 21-14, 18-16) before sweeping Rodriguez and Urango in the second (21-15, 22-20) to seal up their bid. Kraft and Cannon used a pair of sweeps over Maya Gessner and Jacinda Ramirez (21-11, 21-17) and Xolani Hodel and Teegan Van Gunst (21-15, 21-16) to put themselves back in the League after being one of the more entertaining pairs in 2024 paired with Seain Cook and Cody Caldwell.
Cook, too, will be back, squeaking in with Brian Miller despite taking a ninth-place finish in Huntington. After dropping to Troy Field and Theo Brunner in the first round (15-21, 22-20, 15-13), they needed Field and Brunner to lose to Budinger and Evans in the second, which they did (27-25, 19-21, 15-13) in a heartstopping match.
Avery Drost and Wyatt Harrison, perhaps the surprise team of 2025 thus far, also qualified, upsetting sixth-seeded Cody Caldwell and Ryan Wilcox (21-15, 21-18) before dropping to the coach-defender duo of Billy Allen and Taylor Crabb (22-20, 21-17).
The first League event will be in Palm Beach, Florida, May 23-24, coinciding with a Contender tournament on the same dates.
Rick Atwood photo
