Had you been at the Hermosa Beach Pier last Friday afternoon, you’d have noticed a peculiar site, one not seen on a beach volleyball court professionally (in a doubles format) since August of 2016: Taylor Crabb and Trevor Crabb, playing together.
It was a NORCECA qualifier, one in which the winning team would receive a bid into five successive NORCECA events, the entry level rung on the international ladder. With Trevor’s current partner, Phil Dalhausser, retired from international play, and Taylor’s domestic teammate, Taylor Sander, not interested in it, it made sense enough for the two to reunite.
“The Crabb bros might hit a few internationals this year,” Taylor Crabb said on this week’s SANDCAST, which you can already watch if you’re a member of our YouTube Channel. “There was no one else.”
They lost that qualifier, dropping to Gage Basey and Thomas Hurst in the semifinals with Trevor nursing a pulled quad that rendered him mostly useless for the match (seriously, go watch the video of their first rounder against Carlos Jimenez and Charlie Siragusa on the NY Varsity Sports YouTube Channel; Trevor barely moves). Basey and Hurst took second, losing a wild final to Evan Cory and Derek Bradford.
The odds of a bid trickling down to the Crabbs are actually still decent. Five events are a lot, and it’s unlikely Cory and Bradford or Basey and Hurst will go to all, or even most, of them. Technically, the Crabbs took fourth, as they forfeited the third-place match, against Lev Priima and Dave Wieczorek, so three teams would have to opt out for the Crabbs to get the nod for a NORCECA.
But that’s not all they’re penciling in together.
They’re signed up for the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Baden Challenge in early August, and they are planning on a Futures in Pompano Beach in December. There’s also a potential Elite being hosted in Newport Beach in October, although nothing has been confirmed. If so, USA Volleyball would get a main draw and a qualifier wild card to use as it chooses. Whether those wild cards would go to the Crabbs or someone else – if the event does, indeed, happen – is up to USA Volleyball.
For now, however, the Crabbs will play locally, and against one another, in the AVP League. One of the few matches more interesting than the Crabbs playing together is when they play against one another.
