Taryn Brasher And Kristen Cruz Win AVP Chicago Championship

After three-peating the Manhattan Beach Open, the U.S. beach volleyball stars captured the 2026 AVP League Championship in Chicago, reinforcing why they remain one of America’s premier teams heading toward LA28.

(This is part one of a two-part story based on a Forbes exclusive interview with Taryn Brasher and Kristen Cruz on September 3, 2026. All quotes are taken directly from a transcript of the interview.)

A Chicago Championship With Special Meaning

Three days before Taryn Brasher and Kristen Cruz were scheduled to compete for the 2026 AVP League Championship in Chicago, they told me exactly what the title would mean. It was already written down. At the beginning of every season, Brasher and Cruz separately write their goals for the year—AVP, international competition, physical goals, mental goals and everything in between.

Chicago was on both lists.

On Sept. 6, they checked it off.

Brasher and Cruz, playing for the Austin Aces, defeated the No. 1-seeded Palm Beach Passion team of Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson 15-10, 15-12 at Oak Street Beach to win the 2026 AVP League Championship. They had defeated Kelly Cheng and Megan Kraft 15-8, 15-9 in the semifinals earlier that morning. The championship capped a remarkable stretch for the pair.

In August, Brasher and Cruz won their third consecutive Manhattan Beach Open, beating Cheng and Kraft 21-18, 21-16 in the final. They went 18 consecutive matches undefeated at the historic Manhattan Beach event across their three championship runs. Chicago, however, carried its own motivation. The previous year, Brasher and Cruz had received a bye into the semifinals before losing, leaving them with what Brasher described as “a disappointing finish.”

“So I think we really want to, like pinpoint that this weekend and really give it our all,” Brasher told me in our Sept. 3 interview.

They did exactly that.

Building A High Floor

The Chicago championship was not an unexpected breakthrough. It was another product of a philosophy Brasher and Cruz have been building since their days together at LSU. Cruz credits their longtime coach, Drew Hamilton, with establishing the foundation.

“From the beginning with our coach Drew Hamilton, it was building the framework,” Cruz said. “And that was to always have our floor be at a certain level.”

That phrase—building a high floor—may explain more about their sustained success than any single statistic. Beach volleyball rewards spectacular plays, but championships are often determined by what happens between the highlights. The goal is not simply to reach an extraordinary level. It is to make the ordinary level extraordinarily reliable.

Cruz said their training has been designed so that they can reach “these high peaks” while ensuring that their consistency remains strong. The result has been a partnership capable of repeatedly producing championship-level volleyball. The AVP itself described Brasher and Cruz as the hottest team in the sport entering Chicago after their Manhattan Beach three-peat. Brasher led the AVP League in hitting percentage at .529 entering the championship weekend.

Trusting Their Side Of The Net

Brasher describes Hamilton as “the mastermind,” but she also emphasized something that has become central to the team’s identity: controlling what happens on their side of the net.

“You’re never going to know what your opponent’s going to come in with a game plan,” she said.

The answer is adaptability. Rather than becoming overly dependent on a particular scouting report, Brasher said they concentrate on executing their own game and then adjusting to whatever an opponent presents. Cruz takes the same approach.

“I honestly don’t really watch a ton of film on other teams,” she said. “It’s more about what we’re doing on our side.”

It is a deceptively simple philosophy. At the highest level of beach volleyball, every opponent is talented enough to expose a weakness. The answer, for Brasher and Cruz, is not to chase every opponent. It is to make their own game as dependable as possible. That philosophy proved valuable in Chicago, where the women’s championship format featured matches played to 15 points. Every possession mattered. Every mistake was magnified.

The champions played within themselves.

The Mental Evolution Of A Partnership

Brasher and Cruz have been together long enough to know that technical improvement is only part of becoming a better team. Their mental development has been just as important. They have worked with a sports psychologist and gradually learned how to communicate more effectively, understand one another better and handle the inevitable tension that comes with elite competition.

“When you go from the beginning of us playing together to now, it is crazy different in how our communication style and how we work together as a team,” Brasher said.

That evolution did not happen overnight. It happened through repetition, through difficult matches, through victories, and through losses. And through learning what the other person needs in the moments when things aren’t going well. Their competitive standards remain extremely high.

“We could win a tournament, and we go into practice, and we’re like, okay, yeah, we won that game, but we did X, Y, and Z wrong,” Brasher said.

But there has been another change. They have learned to celebrate.

“We do celebrate a little bit more,” Brasher said.

For elite athletes, the ability to immediately move on to the next challenge can be a strength. It can also become a trap.

Brasher and Cruz are learning to leave room to savor the victories.

Resilience And Trust As Superpowers

When I asked each athlete to identify the partnership’s “superpower,” their answers were revealing. Cruz chose resilience. Brasher chose trust in their training. Those qualities complement one another. Resilience is what allows a team to absorb adversity without losing its identity. Trust is what allows athletes to execute when the pressure is highest. And their chemistry has become one of their defining characteristics.

April Ross, the head coach of USA Volleyball’s women’s beach national team, offered a similar assessment when I spoke with her before my interview with Brasher and Cruz.

Ross highlighted Brasher’s size, blocking and attacking ability, while describing Cruz as exceptionally fast and explosive defensively, with outstanding vision and the ability to read situations. She also emphasized their chemistry and their ability to enjoy the journey—finding good food and occasionally extending tournaments into vacations, while making time to rest and mentally regroup afterward. The description fits the philosophy Brasher and Cruz described themselves.

They compete intensely.

They also understand they are on a long journey.

How NCAA Beach Volleyball Is Changing The U.S. Game

Their rise also reflects a larger change in American beach volleyball. Cruz and Brasher came through the NCAA beach volleyball system at LSU, where they experienced an unusually demanding training environment. Brasher remembers practicing for three hours a day, five or six days a week.

“You’re never going to be able to train at that pace as you age, as you start drawing in travel, and a bunch of other things,” she said.

Her advice to younger players is to use the college years aggressively. Experiment. Challenge yourself. Don’t become comfortable. The training time available to collegiate athletes provides an opportunity that becomes much harder to replicate once professional travel, tournaments and international competition take over. The depth of American women’s beach volleyball reflects that development. Cruz and Brasher are no longer competing in an environment where a small handful of American teams dominate the pathway to the Olympics.

The road to LA28 will be intensely competitive.

From Chicago To Los Angeles

The 2026 AVP League Championship gives Brasher and Cruz another major accomplishment to carry into the next Olympic cycle.

It also reinforces something they have learned over several years together. They don’t need to reinvent themselves every time they win. Trust their training. Focus on their side of the net. Adapt. Communicate. Celebrate.

Then go back to work.

That formula has now produced three consecutive Manhattan Beach Open championships and an AVP League title in the same season. For a pair that is already looking toward the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the Chicago championship is more than another trophy.

It’s evidence that the process they have spent years building continues to work.