Ep. 4: Crabbs Collide

Tori: Happy Friday, September twenty-fifth, and welcome back to Sideout AI, your weekly rundown of everything happening on the sand. Broadcasting from Saint Petersburg, Florida, I'm Tori.

Cooper: And I'm Cooper. Today's show is presented by Meta Muse. When you need real-time answers on anything in your life, flights, money, your inbox, your calendar, Meta Muse handles it right in chat. Thanks to Meta Muse for keeping this show rolling.

Tori: Here are your headlines. Laguna Beach delivered the final the entire 2026 season had been waiting for. Two brothers, stadium court, a trophy on the line. Taylor won.

Cooper: And on the women's side, the four seed crashed the party. MAD-uh-lin AND-der-son and ah-LAY-nuh chah-KOHN went five and oh, beat the world number three from Brazil, and lifted their first AVP title.

Tori: Plus, the Futures wrapped in Italy with an Olympic reunion on top, we say goodbye to two veterans of the game, and we've got early winner leans for the Santa Barbara Open. Let's get into it.

Cooper: Segment one, the US Tour. The Progressive AVP Laguna Open ran September eighteenth through twentieth at Main Beach in Laguna Beach, California, the final stop of the 2026 AVP season. And it gave us the one matchup the bracket math had teased all year and never delivered.

Tori: The all-CRAB final. AN-dee BEN-esh and TAY-ler KRAB, the one seed, against chayss BUD-in-jer and TREH-ver KRAB, the two seed. Sunday on stadium court, and the younger brother took it in straight sets, twenty-one fifteen, twenty-one nineteen.

Cooper: Taylor played the match of the weekend. Twenty-two kills on thirty-eight swings, hitting four twenty-one, fifteen digs, and four aces. BEN-esh added eight kills at four thirty-eight with his usual wall at the net.

Tori: And the family containment ran the other way. Trevor had hit seven fifty in the Chicago final two weeks ago. At Laguna, his little brother held him to three oh four. chayss BUD-in-jer played a big final, four twenty-nine with four blocks, and it still wasn't enough.

Cooper: BEN-esh and Taylor won Laguna the way they won Manhattan Beach, without losing a match. Two AVP titles this year, both undefeated. And the California sweep is complete. Huntington, Manhattan, Hermosa, Laguna. Four titles, one summer, zero losses.

Tori: Now the women's side, because this might be the story of the weekend. MAD-uh-lin AND-der-son and ah-LAY-nuh chah-KOHN, the four seed, beat vik-TOR-ee-uh LOH-pez and tah-MEL-uh kor-ah-DELL-oh of Brazil, the three seed and the world number three, twenty-one nineteen, twenty-one fifteen in Sunday's final.

Cooper: AND-der-son was surgical. Five hundred hitting with zero errors on twenty-four swings, plus two blocks and two aces. She never gave the Brazilians a single run of free points. chah-KOHN dug fifteen balls in two sets, above even the pace that led the League in digs this season.

Tori: vik-TOR-ee-uh was excellent in defeat, nineteen kills at four seventy-two, but Laguna belonged to the four seed. Five wins in five matches. They beat MOL-ee SHAW and Devanne Sours twice, once in the winners bracket and again in Sunday's semifinal, and took out KLOH-ee loh-REEN and koh-RIN KWIG-uhl in between. Nobody took a set off them until the last day, and nobody took a match off them at all.

Cooper: Context on this run, because it's a heater. They missed the Chicago playoffs by a single tiebreaker. Then a tie for third at Manhattan Beach. Now champions at Laguna. Six weeks, straight up the ladder. And it's the first AVP title for both of them, and the first FSU Seminoles to win an AVP since Jace Pardon back in twenty nineteen.

Tori: Now the bracket underneath, because Saturday morning cracked the women's draw wide open. The nine seed, KLOH-ee loh-REEN and koh-RIN KWIG-uhl, beat the top-seeded KEH-lee cheng and MEH-gan kraft twenty-one nineteen, twenty-one fifteen in round two, an eight seed gap. KWIG-uhl's line was the loudest of the weekend outside the finals, sixteen kills and seventeen digs in two sets.

Cooper: cheng hit five fifty-six with six total blocks in the loss, and it still wasn't enough. cheng and kraft finished tied for seventh, eliminated Sunday morning by Shaw and Sours. The back-to-back bid died on Saturday.

Tori: And the Brazilians nearly turned their own stumble into a title. Upset in three sets in round two by the eleven seed, KY-lee duh-BURG and HAY-lee ZAH-kah, an eight seed gap, vik-TOR-ee-uh and tah-MEL-uh then won four straight elimination matches, including a three-set semifinal over the two seed, SAV-ee KOR-ee and DEV-in NOO-beh-ree, to reach the final the long way around.

Cooper: Quick note on Cory and Newberry. They reached the semis despite Newberry rolling her ankle earlier on Saturday. Gutted it out, beat duh-BURG and ZAH-kah twenty-one eighteen, twenty-one seventeen in their third match of the day. Tough out.

Tori: Men's side upsets. The twelve-seeded qualifiers, TIM-oh-thee BROO-ster and RY-in ee-ER-nah, announced themselves Saturday morning by knocking off the five seed, mylz EH-vinz and uh-LEKS rahn-GYEH-ree, twenty-one sixteen, twenty-three twenty-one in the opening round, a seven seed gap.

Cooper: And England's Juan and Joaquin Bello, the eleven seed, upset the six seed, Evan Cory and Troy Field, in round one, a five seed gap. Then Cory and Field did something about it, four straight wins through the contenders bracket, including a sixteen fourteen third set over the three seed, Mathias Berntsen and Hendrik Mol of Norway, to reach the semifinals before BEN-esh and Taylor ended the run.

Tori: kaym shalk and Cody Caldwell, the seven seed, won three straight to reach the other semi, including a win over the four seed, James Shaw and Ryan Wilcox, before BUD-in-jer and Trevor Crabb beat them for the second time in two days.

Cooper: One more Laguna note, and it's a goodbye. Tim Bomgren and Avery Drost played their last event. Two veterans hanging it up at Laguna. Tip of the cap.

Tori: TruVolley movers, from the public ratings board. TAY-ler KRAB, up sixteen spots to thirty-first, the biggest jump of the week after Laguna. His brother Trevor climbs eleven to fortieth. BEN-esh up seven to twenty-fifth, BUD-in-jer up five to twenty-eighth. And the biggest drop, Mathias Berntsen, down sixteen to fiftieth. The women's ratings sit behind the login, so that's the men's picture.

Cooper: Segment two, the World Tour. The Beach Pro Tour Futures in Corigliano-Rossano, Italy wrapped September twentieth, and the men's final was an Olympic reunion. Italy's Enrico Rossi and Daniele Lupo, the three seed, swept Ukraine's Dmytro Kozii and Sviatoslav Nahornyi, the seven seed, twenty-one seventeen, twenty-one nineteen.

Tori: Rossi and Lupo hadn't played together on Tour since April of twenty twenty-four. Second Tour gold as a pair, and they did it with five straight-set wins. In the semis they blanked Germany's Jonas Reinhardt and Milan Sievers, the nine seed, twenty-one fifteen, twenty-one eleven.

Cooper: The Ukrainians are twenty years old and took home their first Tour medal together, four straight wins, including a three-set comeback in the semis over Hungary's Artur Hajos and Lukas Niemeier, the five seed. Fourteen twenty-one, twenty-one eighteen, fifteen thirteen.

Tori: Bronze went to Reinhardt and Sievers, seventeen twenty-one, twenty-three twenty-one, fifteen eleven over the Hungarians. First Tour podium for that new German pairing.

Cooper: Women's side, Germany's Rika DEEK-mahn and Sarah Schulz, the five seed, beat Poland's Aleksandra Gromadowska and Agnieszka Adamek, the six seed, twenty-one nineteen, fourteen twenty-one, fifteen twelve in the final. Bronze to Brazil's top-seeded Giulia Gavio and Carolina Sallaberry kah-vahl-KAHN-chee. The American pair of Halle Hunt and Tessa Van Winkle, the eight seed, lost in the quarterfinals to the eventual champions.

Tori: Coming up on the World Tour, the Futures head to Alanya, Turkey, October fifteenth through eighteenth. The men's main draw is topped by Indonesia's Bintang Akbar and Sofyan Rachman Efendi, with the USA's Ezra Krohn and Zachary Soule in the qualifier. Women's top seeds are China's Kaiyue Jiang and Mingli Zhou, with Delaney Peranich and Tessa Van Winkle of the USA in the qualifier.

Cooper: And the Asian Games beach volleyball tournament is live right now in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, running through October third. We'll have results as that bracket plays out.

Tori: Grass check. Quiet week on the grass, but circle October twenty-third through twenty-fifth. The AVP Grass Nationals in Gainesville, Florida, three days, triples at ten thousand eight hundred dollars, twos at eight thousand. Twenty-one thousand guaranteed across the open divisions. We'll have entrants and picks as it gets closer.

Cooper: AVP Next check. The only Next event in the window was Austin, Texas, September nineteenth and twentieth, at eight thousand dollars, under the bar. Winners there, Brecht Piersma and Leann Wise on the women's side, George Huhmann and Dillon Cox on the men's.

Tori: Segment three, the Scene. No new partner splits announced this week. One injury note from Laguna, though. Jacob LaBouliere was hurt, so Miles Partain played the event with Travis Mewhirter, seeded fifteenth. And on the entry lists, Corigliano champ Rika DEEK-mahn is entered at Alanya with a new partner, Anna-Chiara Reformat, instead of Sarah Schulz. Worth watching.

Cooper: And a quick look at the fall schedule, because there's one more big one. October second through fourth, the Santa Barbara Open at East Beach, presented by Jones Trading, carrying a sixty thousand dollar purse, thirty a side. Registration closed Thursday, so the entry list should drop any day now.

Tori: Time for the Player Spotlight of the Week, presented by Meta Muse. This week's pick, MAD-uh-lin AND-der-son.

Cooper: Twenty-four years old, six foot one, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, Florida State Seminole, three-time All-American. One hundred and four career college wins. And now, first-time AVP champion.

Tori: The resume was already there internationally. Four FIVB titles, sixty-two thousand eight hundred fifty-eight dollars in career winnings before Laguna. But the AVP breakthrough is the story. Missed Chicago on a tiebreaker, third at Manhattan, champions at Laguna. And that final, five hundred, no errors, against the world number three.

Cooper: She's the first Seminole to win an AVP since twenty nineteen. The breakthrough is official. Player Spotlight, MAD-uh-lin AND-der-son.

Tori: Winner picks. Santa Barbara entries aren't published yet and the full TruVolley ratings sit behind the login, so these are early leans, with the real ratings-based picks coming next week once the entry list drops.

Cooper: On the men's side the public ratings point one way. BEN-esh at thirteen point five eight and Taylor Crabb at thirteen point four five are the highest-rated pair on the board, and they're the Laguna champs, undefeated at their last two AVP events. Early lean, BEN-esh and TAY-ler KRAB.

Tori: Women's side, no ratings available, so this is form. AND-der-son and chah-KOHN just went five and oh against the best field of the fall and beat the world number three in the final. Early lean, the Laguna champs to do it again at East Beach.

Cooper: That's the show for this Friday, September twenty-fifth. Laguna gave us the Crabb final we waited all season for, Taylor and BEN-esh finished the California sweep undefeated, and AND-der-son and chah-KOHN broke through in a big way.

Tori: New episodes drop every Friday. Subscribe to the Sideout AI feed wherever you get your podcasts, and follow at sideoutai on Instagram for clips from every episode. We're Tori and Cooper, broadcasting from Saint Petersburg, Florida, presented by Meta Muse. See you on the sand.