The Summer of Alexis Durish and Audrey Koenig continued on Sunday at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Geneva Futures, as Florida State’s top pair claimed a gold in their first Beach Pro Tour event as a team, beating out second-seeded Lithuanians Ieva Dumbauskaite and Gerda Grudzinskaite 21-16, 24-26, 15-5.
It is the eleventh medal from a USA Volleyball women’s team this summer, and the sixth gold. For Seminoles alone, it is the third such gold collected, adding to the two picked up by Alaina Chacon and Morgan Chacon in Australia and Thailand earlier this year.
While it may be a surprise to some to see a team with zero Beach Pro Tour experience emerge from the qualifier and finish on top the podium, it should come as no such surprise to those who follow the NCAA. Durish and Koenig were the linchpin of an FSU team that finished 26-10 and were ranked as high as No. 5 in the country. They finished 24-9, all on court one, and put together separate winning streaks of eight matches and six.
They have since carried that momentum into the summer, qualifying for the World University Games via winning a tournament in Manhattan Beach, California, qualifying for the AVP Palm Beach Contender event, where they finished ninth, and sweeping their way to a NORCECA gold medal last weekend in the Cayman Islands.
Now, they’re adding a Beach Pro Tour gold to the growing tally of accomplishments.
Rick Atwood photo
Lexy Denaburg, Julia Donlin take fourth at Stare Jablonki Challenge
The podium narrowly avoided Lexy Denaburg and Julia Donlin at the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Stare Jablonki Challenge this weekend. After winning four straight matches to punch their ticket into their first semifinal as a team, they dropped the next two, to Ukraine’s Maryna Hladun and Tetiana Lazarenko (14-21, 18-21) and France’s Aline Chamereau and Clemence Vieira (18-21, 18-21). It is the second straight bronze won by Chamereau and Vieira, who have strung together three straight top-five finishes in Xiamen, Alanya, and now Stare Jablonki.
Hladun and Lazarenko would go on to win gold, over Germany’s Louisa Lippmann and Linda Bock, 19-21, 21-14, 15-11. It is Ukraine’s first medal since winning gold at last fall’s Chennai Challenge, where, like Stare Jablonki, they knocked out consecutive USA Volleyball teams to get there.
The silver medal is the first podium of Bock’s career — her previous career high was a ninth — and the first medal for Lippmann, a 2024 Olympian, since the Saqaurema Challenge last March.
For Donlin and Denaburg, it is the second top-five in three events as the new partnership continues to find its footing.
On the men’s side, Switzerland’s Marco Krattiger and Leo Dillier won a massive gold medal, upsetting Poland’s Michal Bryl and Bartosz Losiak, 25-23, 16-21, 16-14. It is their fourth medal as a team and the first gold, an unexpected one, too, coming off a qualifier loss in Alanya and consecutive losses at the Geneva Futures. It’s a massive one, however, as they head into the biggest event of the year, at home in Gstaad, where they will begin in the qualifier.
