Twelve Teams, One Weekend at Oak Street Beach
The 2026 AVP League season ends where it has been pointing since May: Labor Day weekend on Chicago’s Oak Street Beach, with twelve pairs and two titles on the lakefront.
The format is simple and unforgiving. Four quarterfinals on Saturday morning. Semifinals rolling in behind them. Finals on Sunday afternoon. Single elimination the whole way, which means every team in the field is at most three matches from a championship, and one bad hour from the offseason.
Here is the full field, and the four quarterfinals that open the weekend.
How the Weekend Works
The top two seeds in each gender earned byes into the semifinals: Miami Mayhem and Palm Beach Passion on the men’s side, Palm Beach Passion and Austin Aces on the women’s. Seeds three through six play Saturday’s quarterfinals for the right to face them. The full schedule, all times Central, is below.
Women’s Quarterfinal 1: Brooklyn Blaze vs Dallas Dream, Saturday 10:00 AM
The weekend opens with the #4 and #5 seeds, and a score to settle. Lexy Denaburg and Julia Donlin met Kylie DeBerg and Betsi Flint once during the regular season, at Long Beach, and Dallas won it in straight sets, 15-12, 15-10.
Brooklyn arrives as the reigning AVP League Champions, the title Denaburg and Donlin won in 2025. Dallas arrives with the more consistent 2026 resume: 4-4 with wins over the League’s top teams, and Flint anchoring the back court at fourth in the League in digs per set. The defending champions against the team that beat them. The winner gets #1 Palm Beach in Saturday’s semifinal.
Men’s Quarterfinal 1: New York Nitro vs Austin Aces, Saturday 11:00 AM
Two late-season surges collide, and one of them was the steepest climb in the League.
Austin’s men were 0-4 in late July. Then came their first win at East Hampton, and then a 4-0 team weekend in Dallas where Troy Field and Ryan Wilcox swept both matches, the exact condition they needed to clinch. Six teams had easier paths in. None of them took the hard one and made it look that clean.
New York’s climb was nearly as improbable. Chaim Schalk and James Shaw started 1-5, swept Central Park, and locked a playoff berth before Dallas even started. Their one meeting with Austin this season came during that Central Park run: Schalk and Shaw dropped the first set 15-10, then won the next two 15-11, 15-11. The rematch decides who faces #1 Miami.
Women’s Quarterfinal 2: Miami Mayhem vs San Diego Smash, Saturday 12:00 PM
On paper, this is the round’s clearest favorite. Kelly Cheng and Megan Kraft finished 5-3, reached the Manhattan Beach Open final two weeks ago, and Kraft ranks fifth in the League in hitting percentage at .427, the highest mark of any defender in either gender. The four players above her are all blockers, which includes Cheng, ranked 2nd at .500.
But the one team that was problematic for Kraft this season is the one standing across the net. In their East Hampton meeting, Geena Urango and Megan J. Rice dragged Kraft to a .192 hitting day, her roughest of the season, and pushed Miami to three sets before falling 15-13, 12-15, 15-10. San Diego survived Dallas on a tiebreaker to get here. They have already proven the blueprint exists.
The winner meets #2 Austin in Sunday morning’s semifinal.
Men’s Quarterfinal 2: San Diego Smash vs LA Launch, Saturday 1:00 PM
The only all-California quarterfinal, and the only one with a full season series behind it. San Diego and LA are the lone quarterfinal opponents who played twice in the regular season, and they split: Chase Budinger and Miles Evans won in three sets at Belmar in Week 1, Hagen Smith and Logan Webber answered with a straight-set win at Dallas in Week 8.
Saturday is the rubber match, with the stakes turned all the way up. Budinger and Evans bring the firepower: Evans authored one of the season’s five-ever perfect 14-kill matches at East Hampton, and Budinger ranks third in the League in aces per set. Smith and Webber bring the momentum and the League’s aces leader in Smith, whose 19 total aces topped the men’s board. Winner gets #2 Palm Beach on Sunday.
Waiting in the Semifinals
The four teams with byes open their weekend in the semifinals, and each arrives with its own weight.
Miami’s men finished 7-1, the best record in the League, and Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh come to Chicago off a Manhattan Beach Open title run in which they never lost a match. Palm Beach’s men, the back-to-back AVP Cup champions, await the San Diego/LA winner with Trevor Crabb and Phil Dalhausser. On the women’s side, Palm Beach’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson enter as the #1 seed after a 6-2 season, and Austin’s Taryn Brasher and Kristen Cruz arrive holding the #2 seed and a three-peat at Manhattan Beach that made them the hottest team in the sport.
The Full Schedule
Saturday, September 5 (CT)
- 10:00 AM — Women’s Quarterfinal 1: Brooklyn Blaze vs Dallas Dream
- 11:00 AM — Men’s Quarterfinal 1: New York Nitro vs Austin Aces
- 12:00 PM — Women’s Quarterfinal 2: Miami Mayhem vs San Diego Smash
- 1:00 PM — Men’s Quarterfinal 2: San Diego Smash vs LA Launch
- 2:00 PM — Women’s Semifinal 1: Palm Beach Passion vs QF 1 winner
- 3:00 PM — Men’s Semifinal 1: Miami Mayhem vs QF 1 winner
Sunday, September 6 (CT)
- 10:00 AM — Women’s Semifinal 2: Austin Aces vs QF 2 winner
- 11:00 AM — Men’s Semifinal 2: Palm Beach Passion vs QF 2 winner
- 1:00 PM — Women’s Final
- 2:00 PM — Men’s Final
Event Details
The 2026 AVP League Championships run Saturday and Sunday, September 5-6 at Oak Street Beach, 1001 N. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. Get your tickets here.
AVP members get 10% off all event tickets, 25% off AVP merch, and 30% off Wilson volleyballs. Join at members.avp.com.
Twelve teams came through eight weeks for this. Four matches Saturday morning start deciding who leaves Chicago with the crown.
Follow it all at avp.com/league.