It was mere days ago that the AVP announced it would be wild-carding two women’s teams — Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher, and Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson – and no men’s teams into the 2025 AVP League.
Two days ago, that tone changed, when the AVP announced it would be extending a wild card to Phil Dalhausser and Trevor Crabb.
The move – similar to the women’s wild cards – makes sense. Dalhausser announced that this will be the final in his illustrious 23-year career. To risk his final season flaming out in a pair of single-elimination qualifiers off Newland Street in Huntington Beach would have been an avoidably anticlimactic ending. Beyond that, there might not be a men’s team on the AVP with a bigger draw than Dalhausser and Crabb.
Here you have arguably the greatest American blocker of all time in Dalhausser with the loudest, brashest player on Tour in Crabb. Both are serial winners, Dalhausser with 103 to his name, including seven Manhattan Beach Opens; nobody has won more on the AVP in the last six years than Trevor Crabb. To put those two together is the perfect blend of genuine intrigue of how the two disparate personalities will meld and a legitimate possibility that this is one of the best possible combinations of American talents.
The removal of Crabb and Dalhausser from this weekend’s first AVP League qualifier, a single-elimination tournament featuring 16 teams, played in the League-truncated format of three sets to 15, makes it a significantly easier road for the pair who will punch their League ticket on Saturday.
James Shaw and Chaim Schalk, they of the surprising bronze medal at the Quintana Roo Elite16, are the top seed, though they are likely to see Brazilians Alison and Alvaro in the second round. Troy Field and Theo Brunner are seeded second, with Tim Bomgren and Paul Lotman third and Tri Bourne and Evan Cory fourth.
You can find the men’s brackets here, and the women’s brackets here.
