AVP ends season with nostalgia for the men, dominance for the women 

It happened too soon.

We should all be so lucky that it happened at all.

Had Hollywood been scripting the final AVP event of the 2021 season, in Chicago, Illinois, there is little doubting what the final would have been: Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb vs. Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena. For two decades, Gibb and Dalhausser have been the top two blockers in the United States, two of the top blockers in the world. Eight Olympic Games between them. Eighty-six times had they won on the AVP Tour; 113 times had they played one another.

In the final tournament of the season, the final tournament in which Gibb and Dalhausser would be playing in the same event, fate would have been so kind to have them meet one more time, in the finals. Alas, fate wasn’t so neatly scripted this past weekend.

But it was scripted enough.

Alix Klineman and April Ross and Casey Patterson and Chase Budinger were the winners this weekend in Chicago, though the real winners were the people of Chicago, the fans who came to see the final bout of Dalhausser and Gibb, an epic rivalry coming to a magnanimous end.

It was, strangely enough, a seventh-place match in which the two powers met for a final match. It may as well have been a final.

“Well that was an emotional match,” Gibb said after he and Crabb won, 21-17, 21-19. It was emotional for many involved, from the pair of blockers to their two partners, to all of the fans who have been able to witness such sustained greatness for so long, and who are now going to be witness to the rise of the next generation.

“A lot of good things coming to an end this weekend,” Dalhausser said. “Last tournament that Nick Lucena and Jason Lochhead will be on the court together. Last time I will be playing against Jake Gibb. Most likely the last tournament I run with Nick. It’s been a great run but all good things have to come to an end at some point.”

Dalhausser’s and Lucena’s run came to an end prematurely, a seventh-place finish that is uncharacteristic yet symbolic of what is to come. They were put into the contender’s bracket by one of the most promising talents in the United States, young Andy Benesh, a 26-year-old who, in three AVPs this season, set a career-best in each. He and Billy Allen would finish third for the second tournament in a row, losing a narrow semifinal to Patterson and Budinger, another bright and rising talent.

Gibb’s run, too, came to a premature close, dropping in the quarterfinals to Budinger and Patterson. But it was a career that was anything but premature, far longer and remarkably more successful than Gibb could have ever dreamed when he moved from Salt Lake City, Utah, the youngest of 11 kids just hoping to make a single main draw.

“It’s a crazy thing to come from Utah and to go to California with the hope of being in the main draw of the AVP,” Gibb said. “I had no idea what was ahead of me. Siding out in Utah, winning coolers and 25 dollars, I thought was super rad. To get to this point and leave the sport in this way, it’s just a special moment. I just can’t thank the fans enough. The biggest thing I take away are the relationships. We have a small community and it’s the unique, special relationships that I’ll take away for the rest of my life.”

One of those special relationships is Patterson, Gibb’s partner during the 2016 Olympic Games. As it is with Gibb, age seems to be little more than a number to Patterson, a 41-year-old who, in Chicago, made his third straight AVP final alongside Chase Budinger. After winning in Atlanta and falling to Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb in Manhattan Beach, the two reclaimed their spot atop the podium, defeating Bourne and Crabb, 21-18, 21-14 to cap their best season on Tour.

And after that brilliant season, it was, of course, Gibb whom Patterson spoke of afterwards.

“Jake is someone I truly love and am grateful for in my life,” he said.

While there was no such nostalgia, no extra ceremony, on the women’s side, it was special in other ways. The sheer dominance of April Ross and Alix Klineman these past few months has only one precedent: Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor. On August 6, Ross and Klineman won gold in Tokyo, making Ross the first woman in history to win Olympic medals of all three colors.

On August 22, they won their second Manhattan Beach Open.

On September 5, they defeated Brazilians Larissa and Lili, 21-16, 21-18 to win their third straight tournament.

Yes, a new wave of talent is cresting in the United States, but on the women’s side, it’s the veterans who still rule.

“I have to pinch myself pretty much every day,” Klineman said. “Life is seriously so crazy right now.”