With the 2025 NCAA Beach Volleyball season finished, the College Mafia has descended upon the professional ranks at AVP Palm Beach.
Already, on day one in Palm Beach, they are wreaking havoc.
No. 22 seed Jordan Boulware and Angeline Bergner looked nothing like a 22 seed, as the Florida State Seminoles’ No. 5 pair during their final match of the season swept both the No. 11 seed in Chelsea VanDyk and Laura Viren (21-19, 21-15) and the No. 6 in Tambre Nobles and Violeta Slabakova (21-17, 21-13) to qualify for the first main draws of their careers.
No. 18 seed Kenzie Hultquist and Kyleene Filimaua, too, looked nothing like an 18 seed. The two FSU freshmen — now rising sophomores — upset both the No. 15 seed and, in the biggest upset of the tournament, second-seeded Lydia Smith and Kaylie McHugh, 22-20, 21-18.
No. 9 seed Alexis Durish and Audrey Koenig also looked nothing like a 9 seed, sweeping Taylor Slover and Gianna Guinasso (23-21, 21-16) to make their first career main draws, a week after winning the USA Volleyball qualifier for this summer’s World University Games in Germany.
All in all, Florida State finished a clean 6-0 on the day, with three of the eight qualifying teams hailing from Tallahassee, and five of those six players returning for at least one more year at FSU.
The NCAA qualifiers didn’t stop there, either.
No. 4 Parker Bracken and Gabi Bailey, now LSU alum who competed on court one all season for the Tigers and were both named All-American, looked very much the part of the 4 seed, winning both sets of their only match, 21-16, 21-16. One seed below, LSU’s Reilly Allred and FAU assistant Kristi Tekavec punched their ticket into the main draw by winning their only qualifier match, 21-19, 14-21, 15-8.
Top-seeded Delaney Peranich and Kaeli Crews, a former Seminole who recently finished her NCAA career with South Carolina, won their only match, 21-14, 21-17 to move onto the main draw.
All in all, of the eight teams who qualified for AVP Palm Beach on Friday afternoon, six featured players who competed in the NCAA earlier this spring. The only teams who qualified without the boost of an NCAA spring were No. 5 Falyn Fonoimoana and Anaya Evans, and No. 7 Hallie Hunt and Paloma Bowman.
Jordan Boulware of Florida State. / Mark Rigney photo
Young talents, veterans like qualify for AVP Palm Beach
This college mafia, of course, does not apply to the men, who have no NCAA option available to play beach, although there were some rookies and young talents who pushed into the main draw of AVP Palm Beach as well. Chris Ludwig, playing in his first AVP, qualified with 24-year-old Peyton Young, who made his first main draw. Nate Pugh, seeded third with longtime AVP player Ben Vaught, also made his first main draw, as did Will Rivera, defending for Ian Bicko as the fifth seed in the qualifier.
Rowdy Lennon and Logan Mister, the 7 seed, both made it through their first qualifier with back-to-back sweeps — Lennon did make the main draw of last year’s Hermosa Open via winning a CBVA — and Garrett Bucklin, competing alongside Owen Karleznig, will also be making his first main draw appearance. Corey Colberg and Tyler Moore round out the rookies making their main draw debut at AVP Palm Beach, upsetting the fourth seed in the final round.
Veterans and No. 1 Marty Lorenz and Jeff Samuels, meanwhile, were expected to have little trouble and experienced none, winning easily, 21-18, 21-12. Second-seeded Andrew Holman and Dan Leathers, too, had little trouble, winning 21-13, 21-14.
