Daniel “Frito” Freitas is one of the most prolific content creators on the AVP Tour. Ever wonder where many of those videos come from that so many players – Molly Turner, Tri Bourne, Zana Muno, Trevor Crabb, David Schweiner, Kelly Cheng, Ondrej Perusic, you name it – post with virality on their social media accounts? A large percentage of those are shot, edited, and produced by Frito, the man behind the camera for all of our World Champs coverage and for Tri Bourne’s Bourne on the Beach...

This episode of The Road to Paris breaks down the two most recent  @volleyballworld  events, a Challenge in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and an Elite16 in Joao Pessoa, Brazil. The highlights, per Travis Mewhirter, are: - A Netherlands race that is heating up with a gold won by Steven van de Velde and Matthew Immers and a bronze taken by Stefan Boermans and Yorick de Groot - George and Andre reasserting themselves as the top team in Brazil - Chen Xue and Xinyi Xia: SHARPIE! - Chase Budinger and Miles...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features Terese Cannon, who is annually one of the world’s most improved players. Initially an indoor player for Georgetown, Cannon transferred to USC, won a handful of National Championships, and has since become one of the top blockers in the USA. A run at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games with Sarah Sponcil was abruptly called off after Sponcil switched to indoor, but Cannon is now back on track with, unexpectedly,...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Seain Cook, one of the funniest personalities in the entire sport of beach volleyball – or just volleyball as a whole – who is also, despite what his Instagram might lead you to believe, a very, very good player. Had it not been for his own partner, Cody Caldwell, Cook would have been the 2023 Most Improved Player, after a season in which he won both the Waupaca and Laguna Beach Tour Series events and...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features Megan Rice, or Megan J. Rice, or M.J. She’s gone by a number of different names throughout her 2023 season, one in which she won the VolleyballMag Rookie of the Year. Rice was the year’s biggest breakthrough star, on both the men’s and the women’s side, exploding onto the scene at AVP Hermosa Beach, where she and Savvy Simo – on just one practice as a team – made it to the finals. She was then the AVP’s...

This past December was a wild one for USA Volleyball on the men's side. Tri Bourne dumped Trevor Crabb to pick up Chaim Schalk, and Theo Brunner then picked up Trevor Crabb. Chase Budinger scooped Miles Evans, while Miles Partain and Andy Benesh confirmed their partnership, and Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander stuck together. Eleven months later, were the partnership changes a good move? With three of the four semifinalists at the Haikou Challenge USA men, and four USA teams now in the top-24...

Tri Bourne made a landscape-altering decision this winter, dumping Trevor Crabb and picking up Chaim Schalk instead. The results thus far haven't backed up that decision, and our semi-monthly mailbag on SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball With Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter was chock full of questions about that decision. So our episode today put Bourne on the hot seat, answering the question: Does he regret dumping Trevor for Chaim? As well as: Why doesn’t the AVP stream on YouTube anymore? Is Sarah...

DJ Klasnic is arguably the best Serbian beach volleyball player ever – the first to win a medal (in 2017 with Lazar Kolaric) and then the first to win a gold medal (in 2022 with Kolaric). Now, after six years of trying, Klasnic is alas competing on the AVP Tour. What a rookie season he had: six AVP main draws, a seventh in New Orleans, ninth in Huntington and Chicago, with a win over Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander. When the Volleyball Magazine awards come out on Thursday, he’ll be the Rookie...

Steve Obradovich is reviving fours beach volleyball in the United States with the Newport Beach Volleyball Invitational on October 21st. It features a star-studded field of both players and sponsors alike, with the teams being: Taylor Crabb, Taylor Sander, Nick Lucena and Alex Ranghieri; Sean Rosenthal, Jake Gibb, Miles Partain, and Andy Benesh Troy Field, Casey Patterson, Chase Frishman, and Brenden Sander For the women, the teams are Kelly Cheng, Sarah Sponcil, Toni Rodriguez, and Emily...

Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes are the 2023 Beach Volleyball World Champions! Becoming the first @USAVolleyball team to win a World Championship gold medal since April Ross and Jen Kessy did so in 2009. Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth added a bronze medal to the slate, becoming the first American team to win a World Championship bronze medal since Liz Masakayan and Elaine Youngs in 1999 -- which was also the same year multiple USA teams won a World Championship medal. Big weekend. On the men's...

Hailey Harward is one of the brightest young talents making her rise up both the AVP and Volleyball World rankings. A year after winning her first AVP as a rookie in Fort Lauderdale, Harward bumped her average finish on Tour to nearly a fifth, tripled her international prize money, increased her AVP prize money by 38% and, oh yes, got picked up by Alix Klineman and scooped a wild card into the Beach Volleyball World Championships. So yes, it’s been a big year for Hailey Harward, and we chat...

The Beach Volleyball World Championships have arrived, and we are halfway through, with six  @USAVolleyball  teams winning their pool: Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth, Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes, Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles, Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft, Trevor Crabb and Theo Brunner, and Miles Partain and Andy Benesh. But as anyone knows: The real tournament begins Wednesday, where it's single elimination from here on forward. ENJOY! *** We FINALLY have an alcohol sponsor, y'all! Bartender...

Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes are one of the best teams in the world, currently ranked No. 4 in the Olympic race, with a gold medal in Tepic, silver in Gstaad, and two AVP wins in 2023. They’re also coached by Kelly’s husband, Jordan, which has created, as you might be able to guess, an interesting dynamic, one that is both a dream and also extremely difficult. It’s working, both on the court – they are one of the top teams on the planet – and off – they are still happily married. We chatted...

Welcome back to the Road To Paris, where Travis Mewhirter breaks down the race to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France. On this episode, Mewhirter breaks down the most recent  @volleyballworld  Elite16 in Paris, less than a year from the Olympics, which will be hosted right down the street from Roland Garros. We chat about: - The growing dominance of Ana Patricia and Duda, who have now won as many Elite16 gold medals (4) as the rest of the world - Alex Brouwer and Robert Meeuwsen getting...

Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reece have built one of the most extraordinary communities in the world, as top performers in virtually all industries, from the NFL and NBA to Hollywood A-Listers to MMA, big wave surfers, and everyone in between – including volleyball – gravitate towards their home for workouts, good conversation, and downright decadent coffee. Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter took a trip up to the Laird Compound to get a little pool workout and a podcast with Laird and Gabby,...

Jon Alvarez is the founder and CEO of Volleyball Life, the leading tournament software in all of beach volleyball, running more than 3,000 events in 2023 alone – a 70 percent increase from 2022. But Volleyball Life is more than that – much more. It’s one of the top resources for college coaches to scout juniors, as it has an extensive database of nearly every junior player in the country, his or her results, rankings, points, and anything else you’d want to know. It has been fun to watch...

Trevor Crabb has won more AVP tournaments than any player in the last five years. And yet…people still bet against him. And people are still being proven wrong. Crabb made good on his $500 wager that he’d beat Andy Benesh and Miles Partain the next time he and Theo Brunner played them. That next time came in the finals of AVP Chicago, which makes Crabb and Brunner tied for first in wins on the AVP this season, second in points per event in the USA Olympic race, and proving people wrong, as...

The Nourse Twins – Audrey Nourse and Nicole Nourse – are three-time NCAA Champions as starters as USC, something no other women’s program has ever done at Southern Cal. Now, as fall season gets underway, they’re looking for an unprecedented fourth consecutive National Championship. We chatted all about their success as USC, as well as: Why they decided to flip their commitment from Stanford to USC What the culture is like on a team that included an Olympian (Tina Graudina), AVP champions...

The field for the 2023 Beach Pro Tour World Championships has been set! With Wednesday’s drawing of the lots, all 48 teams per gender have been placed into their respective pools. There are some good draws, some bad draws – and huge opportunities all around. On this episode of The Road to Paris, Travis Mewhirter breaks down the World Championships field, including: Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk getting put in the pool of death Alix Klineman and Hailey Harward’s massive opportunity Betsi Flint...

Taylor Crabb and Taylor Sander are, alas, Manhattan Beach Open champions. The world feels right, properly balanced, with Taylor Crabb on the Pier. As for Sander? It took the guy just two shots – two! – to get his name on the Pier. That’s insane. We chat all about their win at the Manhattan Beach Open, as well as a number of other topics y’all are going to love, including: Why Sander thought they had no chance of winning when he woke up Sunday morning How a trash talker ruined the hopes of...

Andy Benesh is the most improved beach volleyball player in the world in 2023. Entering this season with Miles Partain, Benesh was seeded third in the qualifier of a Challenge. Now? He and Partain are the No. 1 ranked team in the United States, and No. 3 in the world. His climb has been extraordinary, and exactly what USA Volleyball needed after the retirements of Jake Gibb and Phil Dalhausser. On this episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, we talk all...

This episode of the Road to Paris follows the Hamburg Elite16, an event in which every single men’s medalist – Sweden’s David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig, Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Sam Cottafava, Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum – has added the jump-set to their offense, not to mention fifth-place finishers and master jump-setters Miles Partain and Andy Benesh. The women’s side is a touch different, as world No. 1 Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa need no trickery, nor do silver...

What’s up with the AVP’s streaming? Is Alix Klineman making a run at the Olympics? Are Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes on a slump? (if so, I’d like to slump like them). Can ANYONE stop Miles Partain and Andy Benesh? These are but a small sampling of the questions we tackled on this week’s SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball With Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, as well as Savvy Simo. AVP Atlanta seemed to be a tipping point for the fans, as more than 60 percent of our record-setting number of questions...

Out of System Volleyball is one of the fastest-rising, most viral digital media brands in the volleyball space. Joe Worsley and Gage Worsley charged onto the volleyball media scene in style, winning the 2020 Waupaca Boatride two weeks after launching Out of System – and just hours after learning how autofocus worked on their cameras. Since, they’ve exploded, adding all-world setter Micah Ma’a to the team. When it is the Worsleys and Ma’a together, they have yet to drop a single set in grass...

Brooke Niles is the longtime beach volleyball coach at Florida State University, heading into her ninth year at the helm. She’s also one of the most successful coaches in NCAA Beach Volleyball history, taking the Seminoles to the NCAA Championship every single year it has existed, something no coach in the country can claim. She’s helped produce professionals such as AVP champions in Jace Pardon, Macy Jerger, and Alaina Chacon, as well as AVP mainstays in Katie Horton, Brook Bauer, and Maddie...