Beach Volleyball Olympian Andy Benesh starred at Palos Verdes High

Former Palos Verdes High All-American volleyball player Andy Benesh is a dark horse candidate in the 2024 Beach Volleyball Olympics

by Kevin Cody

USA beach volleyball teams won gold at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, when the game was introduced as an official Olympic Sport. They won gold again in 2000 and 2004. But USA men haven’t medaled since.

Palos Verdes High graduate (Class of 2013) Andy Benesh and his partner Miles Partain, a Palisades High graduate (Class of 2020), are in Paris now, carrying expectations of not just medaling, but bringing a gold medal back to the South Bay, beach volleyball’s birthplace.

Benesh and Partain are ranked fourth on the international FIVB Tour. Last year, they beat Anders Mol and Christian Sorum, Norway’s 2020 Tokyo gold medalists twice, in one tournament.

“Benesh and Partain have single-handedly revived USA beach volleyball,” Volleyball Magazine’s Travis Mewhirter wrote in a recent issue.

Andy Benesh puts his 6-foot-8 height to his advantage during the AVP Hermosa Beach Open in 2019. Photo by Ray Vidal

The 6-foot-9 Benesh puts up an impenetrable defense. In 2023 he earned Best Blocker honors on the domestic AVP tour.

The 6-foot-3 hyper athletic Partain brings an assortment of unconventional tools to offense that lure opponents out of position. 

They are the youngest Olympic beach volleyball team in Paris. Benesh is 29. Partain, at 22, is the youngest Olympic beach volleyball player ever. They only began playing together in 2022

As a result, there is relatively little video of them for opponents to study. And what there is, isn’t predictive of their future play because the cerebral Benesh and the inventive Partain constantly “add layers” to their game, as Benesh told Volleyball magazine’s Mewhirter. 

Pertain calls his home gym “The Lab” because it’s where he experiments with new offenses.

One of those experiments that befuddles opponents is the jump pass.

Benesh was a four-year starter at USC (Class of 2017). He led the team in kills when he was a freshman.

When the towering Benesh leaps at the net, arms reaching up for Partain’s arching pass, the expectation is a straight down spike. But that may not be what Benesh has in mind. Instead, he may set the unguarded Partain. 

“The jump set isn’t difficult. What’s difficult is the split second decision over whether to spike or set,” Benesh told Mewhirter.

The world’s top ranked team, David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig, of Sweden, are credited with introducing the jump set to professional volleyball.  

But Partain, a former setter for UCLA, has been preaching jump setting since he was a teenager at Pali High. Pertain said it was a challenge to convince Benesh to trust it. It has since proved devastatingly effective.

And fun to watch opposing teams being caught flat footed.

After playing indoor at USC, Benesh transitioned to the beach in 2018, playing with his friend and PV High school Cole Fiers. Over the following four years, he played with a succession of AVP veterans including 2016 Olympian Nick Lucena, and 2008 Olympic gold medalist Phil Dalhausser.

Though not well known to the public prior to qualifying for the Paris Olympics in June, Benesh has been a force in South Bay volleyball since high school.

In 2013, his senior year at PV High, he was an AVCA (American Volleyball Coaches Association) High School Senior All-American first team selection. That year he had 360 kills and 74 blocks.

In 2021, he placed fourth, with partner Billy Allen, in the Manhattan Beach open, a tournament known as the Wimbleton of Beach Volleyball. In 2022, he placed fourth again in the Manhattan Open, with Miles Evans. Evans will be Benesh’s friendly rival in Paris. Evans and former NBA star Chase Budinger will join Benesh and Partain in representing the U.S. in Paris.

Benesh’s South Bay connections extend to his sponsors. He will be wearing a Skechers shorts, jersey and hat when he competes in Paris. The headquarters for the $8 billion company is in Manhattan Beach.

“Having grown up with the brand, it’s fitting that I am taking them with me to Paris,” Benesh said in a Skechers Press release.

Benesh also competes in Manhattan Beach in the annual Charlie Saikley Six Man Tournament during the International Surf Festival. The notorious tournament, which attracts 50,000 spectators annually, is played for bragging rights, but attracts the best players in the region, including AVP and NBA professionals. Benesh and Budinger were on opposing six-man teams in 2019. Unfortunately neither will be able to compute in this summer’s Six Man this summer. 

Benesh and Partain play Brazil’s Andre Stein and George Wanterley on Thursday, August 1. Budinger and Miles Evans play Spain’s Pablo Herrera Allepuz and Adrian Gavia on Friday, August 2. This year’s International Surf Festival Charlie Saikley Six Man is that weekend. Pen