In November of 2025, I saw something I had never seen before in beach volleyball: A team – Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher, in this case, at the World Championships, no less – finished a match with zero errors.
So unmistakable was my zeal for the accomplishment, on the mic for VBTV, that fans across the world sent screen shots of the final stat line.
In my four years of commentating, I’d seen teams come close. A missed serve here. An errant shot there. I’d seen clean sets. Never before had I witnessed a team finish the job. A clean sheet. A perfect game.
At the time, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see it happen again.
And then, in the span of two flawless weeks, Phil Dalhausser did it in three straight matches.
It began in Miami, in a rematch against Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh, the very pair who had made Dalhausser appear as if his 46 years were alas catching up to him in a 15-10, 15-12 sweep in Aspen. The second time around, in Miami, Dalhausser showed no such signs, hitting .571 as he and Trevor Crabb finished a 15-12, 15-12 win with a collective zero errors.
Logan Webber and Hagen Smith were next, in Las Vegas.
Dalhausser hit an astonishing 10 for 11 – a number impressive even for him, the Thin Beast himself.
There is little Webber and Smith could reasonably do to halt a man hitting .909, and indeed they did little in a 15-10, 15-11 sweep.
Then came Chaim Schalk and James Shaw. Even in a match in which Dalhausser and Crabb dropped a set, a 15-10 blowout in the second, Dalhausser still completed the match with zero errors. He’d finish hitting 9 of 12, a clean .750, atoning for an otherwise sleepy performance from Crabb, who hit .292.
In his previous three matches, then, Dalhausser is hitting 27 of 37 without giving away a single error — .729 across three matches in two cities in as many weeks, against three high-level opponents.
That performance has the Palm Beach Passion, aligned with Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson, atop the League leaderboard with 9 wins and 3 losses, collectively, while Crabb and Dalhausser are 5-1 as a pair. They will next appear in Central Park, New York, July 18-19.
