NEWPORT BEACH — Kristen Nuss and Taryn Brasher completed the three-peat of Southern California beach volleyball tournaments with a win in the women’s championship match at the Elite 16 on Saturday afternoon in Newport Beach.
Nuss and Brasher also won the Huntington Beach Open and Manhattan Beach Open this year, cementing their status as the No. 1 women’s team in the U.S.
This week demonstrated that the competition among American women’s teams is rapidly growing, however.
Nuss and Brasher, who played beach and indoor volleyball at LSU, had to win a difficult three-set match against the American duo of Terese Cannon and Megan Kraft in the semifinals earlier Saturday, and then took on the U.S. team of Julia Donlin and Lexy Denaburg in the finals, winning 21-15, 21-14.
After representing the U.S. at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, Nuss and Brasher expect stout competition for the two spots on the American team for Los Angeles in 2028.
“The women’s field is absolutely stacked in America,” Nuss said. “It is going to be an absolute fierce competition.”
The show of force at the Elite 16 began in the qualifying rounds on Tuesday, when all four teams that made the main draw came from the U.S.
Eight of the nine U.S. teams in the main draw then advanced to Friday’s bracket stage.
The lone team that didn’t survive included 2024 U.S. Olympian Sara Hughes, and she and new partner Ally Batenhorst missed out after finishing in a three-way tie for second and losing a tiebreaker.
“Makes all the teams better when you’re constantly competing against top-level talent,” Brasher said.
Donlin and Denaburg had not finished better than fourth in any of their AVP or international matches, but they knocked off 2024 Olympic gold medalist Ana Patrícia Ramos of Brazil and her partner, Duda dos Santos Lisboa, in a three-set semifinal.
Donlin attended North Carolina for two years, Hawaii for a year and played her final season at USC. Denaburg is a Florida native who played at UCLA from 2020-23.
“A lot of it was just powering through difficult games,” Denaburg said. “I think most of our games went three sets, so I think it was just consistency.”
Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan of Qatar won the men’s title against the Brazilian pair of Evandro Oliveira and Arthur Lanci, 21-16, 30-28.
Younousse is from Senegal and Tijan is from Gambia. The 30-year-olds won bronze at the 2020 Olympics and came to Newport Beach tied for fourth in the world rankings, the highest-ranked men’s team in the tournament.
Younousse and Tijan faced Trevor and Taylor Crabb in the second semifinal on Saturday morning and won, 21-14, 21-17.
The Crabbs then finished fourth in the tournament after losing to Chilean cousins Marco and Esteban Grimalt in the third-place match, 21-16, 21-18.
No other American men’s team finished in the top eight.
The Crabbs, who played indoor volleyball at Long Beach State, were playing in their first international match together in nearly 10 years after experiencing immense success on the AVP Tour with separate partners over the past decade.
Cannon and Kraft entered the tournament ranked second in the world, but the former USC beach volleyball players are still searching for their first victory together in 23 tries on the AVP and international tour.
Nuss and Brasher have now blocked Cannon and Kraft’s bid for a first win three times this year, also beating them in the final of the Huntington Beach Open and Manhattan Beach Open.
Just like what happened in the Manhattan Beach Open, Cannon and Kraft held a 13-12 lead in the third set on Saturday, but gave up the final three points and lost, 15-13.
“Early on in our career, we had those moments where it went the other way, and I think the more and more experience we’ve gotten, it’s just figure it out in those moments when it’s cruch time,” Nuss said. “Fortunate for us, we were able to make a few plays here and there and pull it out, but it’s a credit to (Kraft and Cannon). They really are so good and such a well-rounded team, that it’s just a battle every time we play against them.”
Cannon and Kraft were then overmatched in the third-place game against Ramos and Lisboa, getting swept 21-11, 21-12.