Brasher and Cruz Three-Peat. Taylor Crabb and Benesh Run the Table.
The Granddaddy of them all delivered. Taryn Brasher and Kristen Cruz won their third consecutive Manhattan Beach Open title, and Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh went through the entire men’s draw without losing a set. One team cemented a dynasty. The other started a new chapter in a family tradition that now spans nine straight finals.
The crowds matched the stakes: reserved seating sold out all weekend at the sport’s most storied event.
And underneath the two titles, the weekend produced one of the wildest brackets in recent MBO memory: the men’s #1 seed lost the opening match of the tournament to a team that came through Thursday’s qualifier, the women’s #3 seed was knocked into the contenders bracket by Friday afternoon, and a pair of 22-year-olds became the lowest-seeded men’s team ever to reach the Manhattan Beach final.
The Three-Peat Is Real
Taryn Brasher and Kristen Cruz beat Kelly Cheng and Megan Kraft 21-18, 21-16 in Sunday’s final to win their third straight Manhattan Beach Open. They have now won 18 consecutive matches at this event across three years. The last women’s team to win three in a row: Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings, who won four straight from 2005 to 2008.
The weekend bookended itself. On Thursday, Brasher and Cruz received their Walk of Fame plaque on the Manhattan Beach Pier for the 2025 title. Three days later, they earned the next one. They never dropped a match all weekend, closing with a final in which Brasher hit .571 with four blocks and Cruz put up 17 kills on .483 hitting with 10 digs.
Cheng and Kraft pushed the champions harder than anyone had all event, and the runner-up finish is their closest yet at the one title still missing from their resumes. Kraft, at 23, would have been the second-youngest MBO champion of the AVP era. The wait continues, but the trajectory is unmistakable.
Brasher and Cruz now hold three Manhattan Beach titles and an 18-match winning streak at the event — and they arrive in Chicago in three weeks as the #2 seed, chasing the one 2026 title still on the board.
Taylor Crabb and Benesh Run the Table
On the men’s side, Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh did what the #2 seed is supposed to do and what almost nobody actually does at Manhattan Beach: they won the whole thing without losing a single set. Five straight winners bracket victories, a Sunday semifinal over Chaim Schalk and James Shaw, and a 21-14, 21-13 final.
It’s Taylor’s second Manhattan Beach Open title and Benesh’s first. In the final, Benesh hit .565 with 14 kills, three blocks, and five controlled blocks, while Taylor added 10 kills and a game-high 14 digs.
The win extends a remarkable family streak: this is the ninth consecutive year a Crabb has played in the Manhattan Beach Open final. The Crabbs are now 6-4 in those matches, including one all-Crabb final along the way. It’s Taylor’s second Manhattan Beach title, pulling him within two of his brother Trevor’s four. Trevor’s pursuit of a fifth ended Saturday, but the family’s grip on Sunday at Manhattan Beach held for another year.
The 22-Year-Olds Who Made History
Thomas Hurst and Gage Basey entered the weekend seeded #12. They left it as the lowest-seeded men’s team ever to reach a Manhattan Beach Open final. Before this weekend, no men’s team seeded lower than ninth had ever made it, and no team seeded sixth or lower had reached the final since 2014.
Both are 22. Hurst, from Plano, Texas, and Basey, a Colorado product who moved to Hermosa Beach this spring, earned their main draw spot by winning the Waupaca Contender earlier this year. At the Granddaddy, they upset #9 Miles Evans and Alex Ranghieri, beat #13 Brewster and Ierna, then took down #6 Paul Lotman and Miles Partain in Sunday morning’s semifinal to reach the title match.
The final belonged to Benesh and Taylor Crabb. The weekend belonged, in no small part, to two 22-year-olds who arrived through a Contender event and left with the beach volleyball world knowing their names.
The Bracket Chaos Underneath
The #1 seed lost the first match of the tournament. Trevor Crabb and Chase Budinger, the top overall seed playing together on US soil for the first time, fell 2-1 to Ric Cervantes and Jonah Seif — a pair that had come through Thursday’s qualifier — in Friday’s 8am opener on stadium court. Trevor and Budinger then won five straight matches in the contenders bracket before Lotman and Partain ended their run Saturday afternoon.
Dalhausser’s weekend ended on a calf strain. Taylor Sander was forced out before the event after a bike accident, and Nick Lucena, Dalhausser’s former partner and two-time Olympic teammate, stepped in on short notice. The reunion lasted a day and a half: Dalhausser strained his calf in the second set of their winners bracket match against Evans and Ranghieri with the set tied 13-13, and the pair was unable to continue. He is expected to be ready for the AVP League Championships in Chicago, where he and Trevor Crabb hold the #2 men’s seed.
The women’s #3 seed never found footing. Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson were upset 2-1 by #14 van Winkle and Van Winden in the second round and eliminated in the contenders bracket by #24 Durish and Koenig. Wilkerson’s search for a first Manhattan Beach title goes on.
And eight days after the tiebreaker, Anderson and Chacon answered. The LA Launch pair, who missed the Chicago playoffs by a single head-to-head result, beat #5 Savvy Cory and Devon Newberry, reached the winners bracket semifinals, and finished tied for third — the best women’s result of the weekend outside the final.
Chicago Is Next
The AVP League Championships run September 5-6 in Chicago. Dalhausser is expected back alongside Trevor Crabb at the #2 seed. Julia Donlin continues targeting a return for #4-seeded Brooklyn Blaze. Miami’s men and Palm Beach’s women enter as the top seeds.
Next week’s blog breaks down the full Championships field: every team, every seed, and every path to the title.
Follow it all at avp.com/league.
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