Hermosa Open Preview! Strongest Field Of the Year Hits The South Bay

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, where we are previewing the Hermosa Open, which promises to be the strongest field on American soil in 2026. Why? International players are hitting the South Bay in force, including Stefan Boermans, Raisa Schoon, Katja Stam, Maria Gonzalez, Allanis Navas, Reka Orsi Toth, Leon Luini, Alejandro Huerta, Robin Seidl, the Bello Brothers, and more. SHOOTS! We have a NEW BOOK! Get your copy of Volleyball for Dummies at Amazon! Get 25 PERCENT off and FREE SHIPPING on all Mikasa products with our code, SANDCAST and play with the ball. played with the best in the game. Head to Mikasa's website and get your bag of balls today! Get 10 PERCENT OFF VBTV using our discount code, SANDCAST10 Want to get better at beach volleyball? Use our discount code, SANDCAST, and get 10 percent off all Better at Beach products!  Want SANDCAST merch? We got you covered. Check it out here! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, where we answer all of your fan questions in our August Mailbag, including: With Anders Mol going indoor, what other beach players would make for a good indoor volleyball team? Is USA holding an Olympic trial? On that note, when does Olympic qualifying begin and how will it work? Will there be any partnership changes in USA Volleyball prior to the Olympic qualifying? And a wholeeeee lot more! SHOOTS! We have a NEW BOOK! Get your copy of Volleyball for Dummies at Amazon! Get 25 PERCENT off and FREE SHIPPING on all Mikasa products with our code, SANDCAST and play with the ball. played with the best in the game. Head to Mikasa's website and get your bag of balls today! Get 10 PERCENT OFF VBTV using our discount code, SANDCAST10 Want to get better at beach volleyball? Use our discount code, SANDCAST, and get 10 percent off all Better at Beach products!  Want SANDCAST merch? We got you covered. Check it out here! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back to SANDCAST, where we are in the stands of the Gilles Villeneuve, home of the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Montreal Elite previewing what is the final scheduled beach volleyball event of the 2026 season. We're chatting: Can Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson win a third straight gold medal at home? Anders Mol and Christian Sorum are looking to do the same -- in the last event we will see from them until mid-May, as Mol reports to his indoor Italian club on August 29 Can anyone stop Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher, who have lost just one match this entire season on the Beach Pro Tour? Will Andy Benesh and Taylor Crabb remain inevitable, as they were during their unblemished run to the Manhattan Beach Open title? And more! SHOOTS! SHOOTS! We have a NEW BOOK! Pre-order your copy of Volleyball for Dummies today at Barnes and Noble! https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/volleyball-for-dummies-gabrielle-reece/1149015986?ean=9781394418626 Become a member to get EARLY AND EXCLUSIVE ACCESS to watch all new episodes of SANDCAST! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCulle1dnTSh1pzhLUXfYO1g/join This podcast is brought to you by Mikasa, the ball used by the best in the game. Use our discount code, SANDCAST, to get 25% off all Mikasa volleyballs. Catch all the action on VBTV with our Volleyball TV discount code SANDCAST10 Want to get better at beach volleyball? Use our discount code, SANDCAST, and get 10 percent off all Better at Beach products! https://www.betteratbeach.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The boys are FINALLY back together, for the first and last time of 2026, as Tri Bourne, Travis Mewhirter, and Trevor Crabb and family shoot the breeze in a family reunion episode. What do we talk about? A little bit of everything, using Tri's road trip as the backbone of the episode. It's a long and winding and tremendously fun ride. SHOOTS! We have a NEW BOOK! Pre-order your copy of Volleyball for Dummies today at Barnes and Noble! https://amzn.to/3SdHCbe Become a member to get EARLY AND EXCLUSIVE ACCESS to watch all new episodes of SANDCAST! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCulle1dnTSh1pzhLUXfYO1g/join This podcast is brought to you by Mikasa, the ball used by the best in the game. Use our discount code, SANDCAST, to get 25% off all Mikasa volleyballs. Catch all the action on VBTV with our Volleyball TV discount code SANDCAST10 Want to get better at beach volleyball? Use our discount code, SANDCAST, and get 10 percent off all Better at Beach products! https://www.betteratbeach.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

They were inevitable. Both of them. Amid all the carnage, amid all those upsets, amid the second-highest seeded semifinal in Manhattan Beach Open history, Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher remained inevitable. A third straight MBO title, a feat only Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor have done before. A championship won without dropping a set, a feat not accomplished since April Ross and Jen Fopma did so in 2015. Amid all the carnage, amid all those upsets, amid the No. 1 seed dropping in the first round, Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh remained inevitable. A ninth straight MBO championship match that featured a Crabb. An eleventh straight that featured a Hawaiian who cut his teeth at the Outrigger Canoe Club. A second Manhattan title for Crabb, the first for Benesh. A title won without dropping a set, a feat not accomplished since Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena did so in 2015. It's not often in sports that there are two teams of their respective genders who can, with near unanimity, be viewed as the undisputed best. Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher are the best women’s beach volleyball team in the world, and there is scant little evidence to the contrary. Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh are the best men’s beach volleyball team in the United States, and there is, objectively speaing, zero evidence to the contrary: A perfect 11-0 record on domestic soil and two AVP titles in the 2026 season. The fact that both teams pulled off an unblemished run to a Manhattan Beach Open title while the rest of the favorites wavered and fell to surprising contenders speaks further to their separation from the rest of the field. Cruz and Brasher had just three sets all tournament decided by two points, while the final was a comfortable 21-18, 21-16 victory over No. 2 Kelly Cheng and Megan Kraft. Crabb and Benesh were somehow even smoother, blasting opponents by a total of 80 points, smothering Gage Basey and Thomas Hurst, 21-14, 21-13 in a match it seemed the underdogs had no chance. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe no one did. This was the year of the inevitable, the proverbial unstoppable forces meeting no immovable objects. Every team was movable, malleable, bending and bowing to the wills of Cruz and Brasher, Crabb and Benesh. Didn’t matter that this was alas the tournament Gage and Basey proved their flash and sizzle could perform at the highest level of the AVP. Didn’t matter that Cheng and Kraft were playing as well as they have played in their fantastic new partnership. Didn’t matter that Abby Van Winkle and Torrey Van Winden were on a run sprinkled with pixie dust, and that Chaim Schalk and James Shaw had found that something that propelled them to Elite medals in 2025. They were Thanos, both. And when they snapped their fingers, they left in their wake a field vanquished, a landscape dominated. They left with their names scheduled to be etched into the Manhattan Pier. They left as the most inevitable champions in more than a decade. SHOOTS! We have a NEW BOOK! Pre-order your copy of Volleyball for Dummies today at Barnes and Noble! https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/volleyball-for-dummies-gabrielle-reece/1149015986?ean=9781394418626 Become a member to get EARLY AND EXCLUSIVE ACCESS to watch all new episodes of SANDCAST! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCulle1dnTSh1pzhLUXfYO1g/join This podcast is brought to you by Mikasa, the ball used by the best in the game. Use our discount code, SANDCAST, to get 25% off all Mikasa volleyballs. Catch all the action on VBTV with our Volleyball TV discount code SANDCAST10 Want to get better at beach volleyball? Use our discount code, SANDCAST, and get 10 percent off all Better at Beach products! https://www.betteratbeach.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kyle Friend is back in his home studio talking about the 2026 Manhattan Beach Open, or 2026 MBO. It was a wild survival Saturday at the MBO, where no shortage of insanity occurred, such as: Paul Lotman dislocating his shoulder...and still winning, thanks in large part to Miles Partain going superhuman. They're now in the semifinals Maddie Anderson and Alaina Chacon, the 12 seeds, being joined by Torrey Van Winden and Abby Van Winkle, the 14 seeds in a wacky women's semifinal Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh looking like the best men's team in the United States. It's now their tournament to lose And a whole lot more SHOOTS! We have a NEW BOOK! Pre-order your copy of Volleyball for Dummies today at Barnes and Noble! Get 25 PERCENT off and FREE SHIPPING on all Mikasa products with our code, SANDCAST and play with the ball. played with the best in the game. Head to Mikasa's website and get your bag of balls today! Get 10 PERCENT OFF VBTV using our discount code, SANDCAST10 Want to get better at beach volleyball? Use our discount code, SANDCAST, and get 10 percent off all Better at Beach products! Want SANDCAST merch? We got you covered. Check it out here! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, where Kyle Friend is previewing the 2026 Manhattan Beach Open or, for short, the MBO 2026. He's chatting: TKN's potential three-peat Phil Dalhausser and Taylor Sander playing together Can Andy Benesh and Taylor Crabb get on the Pier for the first time? And more! SHOOTS! We have a NEW BOOK! Pre-order your copy of Volleyball for Dummies today at Barnes and Noble! Get 25 PERCENT off and FREE SHIPPING on all Mikasa products with our code, SANDCAST and play with the ball. played with the best in the game. Head to Mikasa's website and get your bag of balls today! Get 10 PERCENT OFF VBTV using our discount code, SANDCAST10 Want to get better at beach volleyball? Use our discount code, SANDCAST, and get 10 percent off all Better at Beach products!  Want SANDCAST merch? We got you covered. Check it out here! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features Terese Cannon. We talk about: Her long road to recovery from a shoulder surgery Why being a great partner has led her to so much success The gratitude she's found for the game in her absence What her plans look like coming back to the game SHOOTS! We have a NEW BOOK! Pre-order your copy of Volleyball for Dummies today at Barnes and Noble! Get 25 PERCENT off and FREE SHIPPING on all Mikasa products with our code, SANDCAST and play with the ball. played with the best in the game. Head to Mikasa's website and get your bag of balls today! Get 10 PERCENT OFF VBTV using our discount code, SANDCAST10 Want to get better at beach volleyball? Use our discount code, SANDCAST, and get 10 percent off all Better at Beach products!  Want SANDCAST merch? We got you covered. Check it out here! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Kyle Friend and Denise Austin chat a wild ride at the Hamburg Elite, where: Nils Ehlers and Lui Wust stole the show with a stunning gold medal Nina Brunner and Tanja Huberli won another Hamburg gold And a whole lot more SHOOTS! We have a NEW BOOK! Pre-order your copy of Volleyball for Dummies today at Barnes and Noble! Get 25 PERCENT off and FREE SHIPPING on all Mikasa products with our code, SANDCAST and play with the ball. played with the best in the game. Head to Mikasa's website and get your bag of balls today! Get 10 PERCENT OFF VBTV using our discount code, SANDCAST10 Want to get better at beach volleyball? Use our discount code, SANDCAST, and get 10 percent off all Better at Beach products!  Want SANDCAST merch? We got you covered. Check it out here! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features Corinne Quiggle, a veteran on the Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour and AVP Tour. We chat about: Yes, when Corinne and Chloe Loreen were snubbed by the AVP League selections Why she still loves traveling internationally, after all these years What makes Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher so dang hard to beat The role of sponsors in beach volleyball, and how Corinne has mastered the art of it And a whole lot more. Fun to be back in the studio!! SHOOTS! We have a NEW BOOK! Pre-order your copy of Volleyball for Dummies today at Barnes and Noble! Get 25 PERCENT off and FREE SHIPPING on all Mikasa products with our code, SANDCAST and play with the ball. played with the best in the game. Head to Mikasa's website and get your bag of balls today! Get 10 PERCENT OFF VBTV using our discount code, SANDCAST10 Want to get better at beach volleyball? Use our discount code, SANDCAST, and get 10 percent off all Better at Beach products!  Want SANDCAST merch? We got you covered. Check it out here! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.