Expand<\/a><\/p>\nLONG BEACH \u2014 A handful of shirtless hecklers stood on the sideline.<\/p>\n
They yelled insults, making fun of 41-year-old Paul Lotman of the Dallas Dream\u2019s age or every misstep his partner, Miles Partain, made.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s body paint spelled out I-HEART-B-D-D, with the heart represented by its typical symbol and the final three letters standing for \u201cBig Dog Derek.\u201d<\/p>\n
The incessant posse may have tipped Saturday\u2019s final match in Derek Bradford\u2019s and the Brooklyn Blaze\u2019s favor. Bradford and Evan Cory defeated the Dallas Dream\u2019s Lotman and Partain 15-11, 14-16, 18-16 at Alamitos Beach on the AVP League\u2019s first day of Week 5.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are my hometown buddies,\u201d Bradford said. \u201cThat\u2019s the nice thing of having a hometown tournament. You\u2019re going to have your own personal friends coming out and cheering for you. I did not know they were going to be doing their little antics. \u2026 Oh my gosh, I know they were in their head.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blaze and Dream\u2019s match was the lone contest to require three sets. Kelly Cheng and Megan Kraft, the Miami Mayhem\u2019s women\u2019s pair, defeated the Dallas Dream 15-8, 15-11. The Miami Mayhem\u2019s men\u2019s pair, Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh, took down the L.A. Launch 15-11, 15-9.<\/p>\n
The L.A. Launch women\u2019s pair of Alaina Chacon and Maddie Anderson swept the Brooklyn Blaze 15-7, 15-13, meaning a pair of AVP League rookies defeated the defending AVP champions, Lexy Denaburg and Julia Donlin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is my first year where I really get the chance to compete against these top teams so often,\u201d Chacon said. \u201cIt\u2019s obviously pressure, but you just trust your coaches, you trust your partner, trust your training and you see what you can do with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chacon hails from Indiana and Anderson from Florida, where the duo also practices. Meanwhile, teams attributed to distant cities are filled with Southern California talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get a lot of questions on why we represent LA and not a Florida team,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t up to us, and we\u2019re just happy to be part of the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
It seemed many Southern California players saw the first day of AVP\u2019s Week 5 as a chance to ground themselves, with multiple athletes saying their parents rarely get the opportunity to watch them play professionally.<\/p>\n
And playing professionally in beach volleyball can be especially taxing.<\/p>\n
Players who are concurrently participating in the FIVB Pro Tour, including Chacon, Anderson, Cheng, Kraft and Partain, were in Switzerland a week ago, playing with the Mikasa ball rather than the AVP\u2019s Wilson ball. They had to reacclimate to the ball at the same time they adjusted to a nine-hour time change.<\/p>\n
The overlap of players who compete in the FIVB and AVP can lead to rivalries, chirping and animosity, especially when considering it\u2019s not uncommon in beach volleyball for players competing in a given tournament to share a single locker room, Benesh said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to the match time, I think everyone\u2019s a true competitor, and they\u2019re going to try to rip your head off to win the match,\u201d Benesh said. \u201cThe dynamic in beach volleyball is very interesting, especially since we all train with each other. Some people don\u2019t like each other, and they still train with each other. It\u2019s entertaining.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the former Trojan added that players are generally good at being professional, cordial and knowing when to turn their internal competitor off.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just the athletes who have to deal with the AVP\u2019s travel schedule and perform come the weekend.<\/p>\n
Mark Schuermann doesn\u2019t have an official title, but he typically fills the role of an MC and doesn\u2019t mind being called \u201cthe Voice of the AVP.\u201d The AVP League\u2019s constant movement throughout the country can be tough for Schuermann, especially with a 7-month-old at home.<\/p>\n
Schuermann has been PA announcing, engaging with fans and doing just about everything to raise the energy in the atmosphere since 2015, something he seemed to succeed in Saturday, though he credited that to the consistently passionate Southern California volleyball community.<\/p>\n
But Schuermann added that he knows how fortunate he is to have a job in something he loves, volleyball, that isn\u2019t a Monday-through-Friday, 9-to-5.<\/p>\n
Schuermann played volleyball through high school and college, and eventually his venture into journalism led him to broadcasting. He knew putting the two together would be like a dream come true.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much of what I do now, I pretty much owe to working in volleyball,\u201d Schuermann said. \u201cI\u2019ve worked three Olympic Games, which is amazing. I\u2019ve worked NCAA championships in hockey and baseball and basketball and lacrosse, and now I work dance competitions. \u2026 Volleyball is definitely my bread and butter, and it\u2019s provided some awesome opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The four teams, totaling eight pairs, return to Alamitos Beach on Sunday to conclude the AVP\u2019s Week 5 with four matches, beginning at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami Mayhem\u2019s Andy Benesh hits over the block of L.A. Launch\u2019s Logan Webber during the AVP League beach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[15116,158391,21866,7,131,133,132,137,10012,127,1092,10992,3533,125696],"class_list":["post-395413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-2028-olympics","tag-avp","tag-beach-volleyball","tag-california","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-olympics","tag-sports","tag-ucla","tag-ucla-sports","tag-usc","tag-usc-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n![\"Maddie](\"https:\/\/www.sbsun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/LDN-L-AVP-LB-0712-11.jpg?w=620\")
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