AVP Manhattan Beach Open: Young players defend their home turf
MANHATTAN BEACH — The women’s bracket at the AVP Tour’s Manhattan Beach Open experienced quite a youth movement on Friday.
Two of the eight teams that started 2-0 feature players still in college or just a few months out.
The 27th-seeded pair of Kelly Belardi and Natalie Myszkowski used their home-court knowledge to knock off sixth-seeded Kimberly Hildreth and Kelley Kolinske in three sets in the opening round.
The Manhattan Beach natives then swept 11th-seeded Madelyne Anderson and Brook Bauer to reach the third round of the winner’s bracket in their first main draw appearance at the Manhattan Beach Open.
“All my friends are here, and my family,” Belardi said. “Doing it on the court I grew up playing on is even cooler.”
Belardi went to Marymount High School in Los Angeles and will be a senior at Stanford, where she has played on the beach volleyball team the past three seasons.
Myszkowski went to Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach and recently graduated from UCLA.
Belardi said they definitely benefited from home-court familiarity.
“We’re so comfortable here,” she said. “I started playing here when I was 10.”
Belardi and Myszkowski, who had to win three qualifying matches on Thursday to get into the main draw, trailed 14-10 in the third game of their opening match against Hildreth and Kolinske, but scored the final six points to win.
Kolinske won the 2022 Manhattan Beach Open with Sara Hughes.
“It just goes to show, in beach volleyball, anyone can win,” Belardi said. “It happened to be our day.”
Belardi and Myszkowski will be joined in the third round by Izzy Martinez and Ella Connor, who had no idea they advanced to the final eight of the winner’s bracket after sweeping eighth-seeded Abby van Winkle and Savvy Simo in the second round.
“Sweet!” Martinez exclaimed.
The Cal Poly beach volleyball teammates were just happy to earn a spot in the 32-team bracket after placing second in a qualifying tournament earlier this summer.
Seeded 24th, Martinez and Connor lost their first set of the day, 21-11, to ninth-seeded Hailey Harward and Molly Phillips, but recovered to win the next two.
“We stayed calm and cool and played our game,” said Martinez, who graduated from Chaminade High in West Hills.
Martinez and Connor will take on the top-seeded team of Taryn Brasher and Kristen Nuss in a third-round match. Brasher and Nuss lost their opening set to Brenda Castillo and Ella Gray, but bounced back to win the next two and then swept 16th-seeded Carly Kan and Devanne Sours in the second round.
There was nearly an ever bigger upset by a college-aged team when 19th-seeded Kennedy Ann Coakley and Ashley Pater pushed third-seeded Kelly Cheng and Molly Shaw to a third game and had several match-point opportunities before losing, 25-23.
Coakley was a freshman on USC’s beach volleyball team last spring and Coakley was a sophomore.
Cheng (formerly Claes), meanwhile, was a 2020 Olympian for the U.S.
“The younger age, I feel like, is really coming for everyone that’s been on the AVP for a while,” Belardi said. “Everyone is so good now and there’s so many good coaches and trainers. I know there’s so many girls, too, who are starting to get home schooled to play beach volleyball. So, it’s very different and it’s really exciting to see all the young girls do super well.”
Another longshot surprise on the women’s side is the 20th-seeded pairing of Torrey Van Winden and Anaya Evans, who toppled 13th-seeded Jacinda Ramirez and Maya Gessner in three sets in the first round, and fourth-seeded Megan J. Rice and Geena Urango in three sets in the second.
The lowest-seeded team to advance on the men’s side was 11th-seeded Ryan Wilcox and Tim Bomgren, who knocked off sixth-seeded Troy Field and Theo Brunner in three games in the second round.
Their third game also went down the wire, with Wilcox putting down two spikes in a row for the 17-15 win, advancing himself to the third round of winner’s bracket at the Manhattan Beach Open for the first time.
Wilcox is a Hawaiian native who went to UC Santa Barbara and has lived in Orange County the past two years, coaching at both Newport Harbor High and Orange Coast College.
Wilcox and Brunner won an AVP tournament together in May in Florida.
“It’s always an interesting dynamic,” Wilcox said of playing against a recent teammate. “It’s fun, because they’re your buddies, but in a way that makes you want to beat them even more.”
Complete men’s and women’s results can be found here. Play resumes Saturday at 8 a.m., with the championship semifinals and finals scheduled for Sunday.