Just two weeks after Florida State’s No. 1 pair, Alexis Durish and Audrey Koenig, claimed gold in a Beach Pro Tour Challenge, in Bhubaneswar, another pair of NCAA Beach standouts, Texas’ No. 2 Katerina Pavelkova and Anna Pavelkova, did the same. The freshmen from the Czech Republic finished this weekend’s Tlaxcala Challenge atop the podium, winning their first medal as a team above the Futures level, upsetting rejuvenated Lithuanian Olympians Monika Paulikiene or Aine Raupelyte, 17-21, 21-13, 15-11.
Perhaps “upset” isn’t such a fitting word.
Consider: Combined, Durish and Koenig and the Pavelkovas lost just one match. Three teams featuring Olympians were downed in the process. Even wilder: The Pavelkovas were coming off a loss to UCLA prior to leaving for Tlaxcala — and only one of the professional teams they played in Mexico could do what Ensley Alden and Kaley Matthews did at East Meets West two weekends ago.
All this, and the NCAA players haven’t even hit the Beach Pro Tour yet! Durish and Koenig flew during a bye week at Florida State, and the Pavelkovas skipped LSU’s Death Volley Invitational — where Texas lost to Cal without their services — to pick up some quick points and $20,000 in prize money.
Years ago, when I wrote AVP previews for VolleyballMag and p1440, I had a section titled “The College Mafia,” detailing all of the NCAA players who could be dangerous. Now the mafia is coming not just for the AVP, but the Beach Pro Tour.
Correction: It already is.
Another tournament, another medal for Sara Hughes and Ally Batenhorst
Sara Hughes and Ally Batenhorst, too, are coming for the Beach Pro Tour. They have now played two tournaments in 2026 and won medals in both, claiming bronze in Bhubaneswar and bronze again in Tlaxcala, sweeping Geena Urango, playing her first Beach Pro Tour event in seven years, and Megan Rice, 21-15, 21-18. It’s another big points grab for USA Volleyball’s newest headliner team, and they might be finished with Challenges altogether already. They’re skipping this weekend’s Challenge in Nayarit, which has a field that is incomprehensibly light, and are next signed up for Elites in Brasilia and Saquarema in April.
Australian men on the rise
Back in November’s World Championships, I wrote that while the Australian men didn’t get any flashy results, they were a federation to keep an eye on.
Indeed they are.
Jack Pearse and D’Artagnan Potts, the two who shocked Chaim Schalk and James Shaw in pool play in Adelaide, ran from the qualifier all the way to gold, sweeping Argentinian brothers Nicolas Capogrosso and Tomas Capogrosso. They are now 12-0 on the year with two gold medals, the first coming at home at a Futures in Coolangatta. Three spots behind them were countrymen Mark Nicolaidis and Izac Carracher, who fell in the bronze medal match to Tim Brewster and Logan Webber, who played positively phenomenal the entire week.
USA Volleyball Tour de Force Continues
USA Volleyball hauled in five medals in the first two events of the Beach Pro Tour season. That tally is now up to seven, with Sara Hughes and Ally Batenhorst bringing home another bronze, and Tim Brewster and Logan Webber adding a bronze to the tally as well.
It is fun beyond words for me to see Brewster excelling like this. It was only a few years ago that I played with Brewster in this very city, and we were delighted to simply be the 31 seed in the qualifier and win a big upset over Denmark in the first round. We promptly bowed out to Sam Schachter and Dan Dearing, but we were proud of the effort.
Now he’s winning bronze medals, and looking very much the part, beating Derek Bradford and Evan Cory, Matthew Immers and Leon Luini, and Carracher and Nicolaidis.
