All Ball Sports: Passion play at the Manhattan Beach Open

by Paul Teetor     

Sunday was a day of spectacular teamwork, both on and off the volleyball court.

USA Olympian Taryn Kloth is 6-foot-4 and built like a fullback on a women’s rugby team. Her volleyball partner, Kristin Nunn, is 5-foot-6 and maybe 130 pounds soaking wet — when covered with victory champagne like she was Sunday afternoon. But she’s cat-quick and wiry strong, making up for her lack of size in a sport dominated by Amazonian women.

When the top-seeded team of Kloth and Nunn pulled off a three-set, comeback win over defending champions Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles in the Manhattan Beach Open Final, Nunn jumped up and into Kloth’s arms, who rocked her like a baby.

But five minutes later when Nuss was asked if that was the first time she had ever done that, she demurred.

“No, we do that at every tournament,” she said.

An exuberant Kloth smiled and playfully corrected her.

“Well, actually we only do it for the tournaments we win,” she said as they both laughed and smiled, fueled by the joy and exhilaration that winning a grueling three set Finals match under the broiling sun can bring after the stinging disappointment of losing in the Olympic quarterfinals a week earlier.

That banter was the kind of teamwork that has served the two well since they started playing together in college at Louisiana State and went 61-0 a few years ago. But it was also that kind of a special day, a day that featured all kinds of feel-good teamwork in between some spectacular volleyball.

First, during the playing of the national anthem, singer Hailey Harward’s microphone was cut off late in the song. As soon as the standing-room-only crowd realized what was happening, they quickly jumped in and finished the anthem for the grateful singer.

Later, during one of the breaks in the action, a game of musical chairs was staged strictly for entertainment.  Announcer Mark Schuermann noticed that one of the contestants, a young lady named Carrie, was noticeably limping.  She told him that the night before she had been in Hermosa when she was hit by an e-bike, which drove her into a wall and fractured her big toe.

She said it was bothering her badly but that she was determined to win the game of musical chairs despite the injury. Well, the crowd immediately got behind the plucky young girl. And when she was one of the last two left with only one chair, Schuermann asked the crowd who wanted Carrie to win and who wanted the young dude still competing with her to win.

The crowd screamed for Carrie and fell silent for the young dude. Not surprisingly, she managed to win even as she limped around the single chair still standing. Even the young dude who lost seemed to be rooting for her.

But the best case of teamwork came during a break in the action when a bunch of AVP guys hanging around the tournament came out on the court to play a bunch of guys from the Los Angeles Football Club, the professional soccer team.

While there were plenty of familiar faces among the AVP guys, the same couldn’t be said for the LAFC athletes. But they turned out to be highly skilled at volleyball, showing an amateur’s mastery of the bump, set and spike skills needed to excel at the sport.

Everybody had a great time and the short competition came down to the last point, when the AVP guys bore down and finished the game off with a monster spike. Fun is fun, but they couldn’t let the soccer guys embarrass them with a win.

Trevor Crabb, and partner Theo Brunner earn redemption after being denied a berth in the Olympics by defeating fifth place Olympics finishers Andy Benesh and Miles Partain in the finals of the Manhattan Beach Open on Sunday. Photo by Ray Vidal

All that off-court teamwork set the stage for some really inspiring on-court teamwork by Trevor Crabb. He was determined to get his partner, Theo Brunner, a Manhattan Beach Open victory and the plaque on the pier with his name on it that goes with it. 

And he got his partner the pier plaque with a 21-18, 21-18 victory in the Men’s Final over Andy Benesh and Miles Partain who finished fifth at the Paris Olympics.

“He deserves it more than anyone,” Trevor Crabb said. “He’s been one of the best players in the U.S. for a while. He deserves to be up there on the pier with everyone.”

Benesh had some monster kills and was impressive as a coming force on the AVP Tour, but in the end the match was pretty routine because Crabb is just so dominant.

The win over the Olympians Benesh and Partain took some of the disappointment out of not qualifying for the Paris Games.

“This was a little bit of redemption for us,” Crabb said. “We should have been there at the Olympics. We came in the best and we’re just trying to prove it.”

His record at the MBO is incredible: appearances in five straight Finals and four victories with three different partners: Reid Priddy, Tri Bourne twice and now Theo Brunner. His only second-place finish came last season when his brother Taylor Crabb beat him and Brunner in the finals.

The just-ended Olympics were on everyone’s mind. Not only were the Men’s and Women’s winners eager to make up for their Olympic disappointments, but the last USA gold medal winners – Alix Klineman and April Ross at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago – were making a comeback and were fifth seeded in the deep field.

The A-Team lost in the main draw early, then won several matches in the Contenders Bracket before falling short of the semifinals. But for the thousands of fans who watched and cheered for the two new mothers – both of them are now Manhattan Beach residents — just reliving those Gold Medal memories was enough. 

That’s teamwork too.

Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com