HERMOSA BEACH, California – Sometimes Evan Cory goes to church. Sometimes he doesn’t. He’s spiritual. Thinks there’s something bigger happening than what we can see down here. He just doesn’t know exactly what that looks or sounds or feels like.
“I believe there is a God, never talked back and forth with Him, but last year, at a certain point, I was becoming a very impatient person,” he said. “They always say if you pray for something – I was praying for patience – they don’t give you patience, they give you chances to be patient. This year has very much been that summed up.”
This year.
Just seven months in, this year has been a lifetime for Cory, who at 27 years old finally seemed prime to make his breakthrough season, the big one, the one that would put an end to the constant shuffling and questioning of who he would play with and when. After winning a gold medal at the Haikou Challenge last Fall with Cody Caldwell, he caught the eyes and attention of Tri Bourne, who after splitting with Chaim Schalk midway through the 2024 season was in search of a new partner.
He called Cory and Cory, whose highest-ranked American partners by that point had been Bill Kolinske and Troy Field, was in. They put their sights on the 2025 AVP League and World Championships, and most anybody in the game would have labeled them as favorites to qualify for both.
A pair of narrow misses to begin the season, at the Beach Pro Tour Yucatan Challenge, in which they lost both matches by a total of five points, begat a third the next week at the Quintana Roo Elite, where they fell, 14-16 in the third set, to Austrians Philipp Waller and Chris Dressler.
That, instead of breakthrough, became the theme of the year for Cory: The Narrow Miss.
In Mexico, Bourne tweaked his neck, putting him out of practice and the first AVP League qualifier in April.
Given three qualifying events with a healthy Bourne, it’s a wonder what might have happened. But now their margin for error was gone; every event would be counted to their point total for the League.
They erred again, another narrow miss to Caldwell and Bourne’s former partner, Ryan Wilcox.
Now their margin for error was zero.
Third at the AVP Huntington Beach Heritage event was the worst Bourne and Cory could do in order to qualify. In a typical tournament, this wouldn’t be an especially tall order; Bourne had, after all, finished in the top-three in 35 of 51 AVP events he’d played. But this was no typical tournament. This was single-elim, and their road to the semifinals featured arguably the two best teams in the tournament: Trevor Crabb and Phil Dalhausser, and, in the second round, Miles Partain and Andy Benesh.
They wouldn’t get to the second round.
In an ending befitting the season, Bourne’s swing for match point in the third set missed Dalhausser’s fingers by millimeters, a narrow miss that would melt into another narrow loss, ending Bourne and Cory’s hopes at the AVP League.
With Bourne’s health still nowhere near 100 percent, he advised Cory to find someone else with whom he could make a run at World Champs.
It took four months for Cory’s Big Breakthrough to dissolve into another year of question marks.
He prayed for patience.
Now, more than ever, was his opportunity to practice it.
“Now just continuing to the path of patience. Finding ways to make it when you can,” he said. “That’s one of the beauties of my life at this point, I’ve always been a grinder, always figured out a way to make things work. Coming from where I came from, it wasn’t the traditional, easy path up, so I know this path. I know things aren’t easy. I know that in order to make it to the top, you have to grind. I think the impatience was growing from when is the breakthrough? I thought China was the breakthrough. I thought getting Tri was the breakthrough and it wasn’t. Just continue on that same path, continue to grind, continue to work, and just believing, trusting what I have is good enough. That’s been the majority of this year: trusting myself, trusting the process, trusting the people around me.
“It’s really just another year of development and figuring out a way to make a living and shifting the focus to longer term instead of short term. Last year was a building year, had some success on the world tour, had some success with Alison – nope, you’re not ready, still need more development. Still need to find a partner and that’s where my brain is right now: Who is the right guy? Who is the right person to take on that journey? That’s the goal this year is to identify the top two or three people I could go on that journey with.”
“Find something, go play it, go win it.”
Cory’s career has been an accurate representation of how he lives his life. Obstacles arise and he shrugs them off, adapts as needed, moves on.
No male precedent in the state of Louisiana to play college volleyball? No problem, Cory would become the first, trailblazing a path for those who would follow behind him.
Losing 10 straight AVP qualifiers before making a main draw? No problem, Cory would do what he does best – win tournaments – and avoid the qualifiers altogether by sweeping satellite qualifying tournaments with Logan Webber, punching his tickets to the 2021 Manhattan Beach and Chicago Opens.
Losing three straight Beach Pro Tour qualifiers in 2023? No problem, Cory would partner up with Troy Field and win their first event together, a Futures in Helsinski, Finland.
No American partners on the block? No problem, Cory would team up with Brazilian all-time great Alison, and together they’d win Denver and Waupaca and assemble Cory’s finest domestic season to date.
No points on the Beach Pro Tour anymore? No problem, Cory would wait until the fall events, partner with Cody Caldwell, survive the qualifier in Haikou, China, and promptly pull of one of the biggest stunners of the season, winning gold over Australia’s Thomas Hodges and Zach Schubert.
So this? Bourne being out, their finest laid 2025 plans scrapped and laid to waste?
This is nothing.
Evidence already abounds.
Cory and Field teamed back up for Denver and Waupaca, and unbelievably, for the second straight year, Cory won them both. Internationally, he scooped up 20-year-old Derek Bradford, and they qualified for a string of NORCECAs that will be a points boon for both.
“That turns into grinding, you gotta play more tournaments, you gotta go and earn it every single time and keep earning it every single weekend,” Cory said. “That’s where my mind is: Find something, go play it, go win it.”
He has found plenty, and has won literally everything he has played since Bourne tapped out. There are just two open dates remaining on Cory’s schedule. The first is to finalize the venue for his wedding this fall with Savvy Simo. The other is the wedding itself, in October.
He’ll even be late to his own bachelor party, arriving after a one-day USA Volleyball NORCECA World Championship qualifier on August 22. He doesn’t even know who he’s playing with yet, only that he’s going to play, and potentially win, which would add another NORCECA date on the calendar, another two weeks of competing in November in Australia for the World Championships.
Another season of adapting, adjusting, thriving.
Evan Cory serves during the AVP League Qualifier on April 12, 2025 in Huntington Beach, CA. (Photo by Will Chu)
