MBO 2022
📸: AVP
MBO
The big one
The grand daddy
The best competition on US Soil
Due to the intensity of this tournament and flight prices we decided that it would be beneficial to come early for the tournament to train. There is no place like it and it’s hard to simulate the wind and deepness of the sand in Louisiana. So, we arrived on Monday afternoon. There were no crazy stories for us personally, however, there was a huge crash on the interstate and people were getting out of their cars and Ubers with their luggage and walking on the side of the road to make it to their flights. Luckily our Uber, Mr. Georgie, was quick to think of another route with the layout of New Orleans being imprinted in his brain. He simply knows everything there is to know about New Orleans, every street name, and never needs any guidance.
We arrived and got to our housing for the week. Words cannot describe how lucky we are. The AVP provided a hotel for us, this hotel was a 16-minute drive to our playing destination. 16 minutes in California traffic could mean 16 minutes or 1 hour and 16 minutes pending the time of day. We did not want to take that chance so we reached out to one of the kindest women we met when we were living in Hermosa Beach earlier this year. She told us to reach out if we needed anything and we took her up on her offer and we are so happy we did. We were blessed with a beautiful house to stay in that is just a 5-minute bike ride from the beach in Manhattan.
This is the cool part about the beach volleyball world and the culture that is included. Everyone helps everyone. There is such a small bubble of people that in two years' time you can learn nearly everyone’s name and we get to spend time with people on the sand. There is no barrier like in other professional sports like the NBA or the NFL. We are all hanging out on the sand together and the connections that are made while enjoying the sport are priceless. Needless to say, we are very grateful and blessed. I personally love coming out here. The weather is usually perfect and it just makes you want to be outside and go on walks and walk to dinner and back and walk to the grocery store. It just makes me want to be more active and that’s my favorite part!
After settling in we got ourselves ready to head to the USA gym. We had a headshot to take for the USA website, so of course, we don’t look like our normal sandy, sweaty selves in our hats and sunglasses. You could see that people had to do a triple take to see who we were. We took our headshot photo, just about 5 months late, and then we were given a bunch of the new USA gear. USA volleyball switched from Adidas to Mizuno and we are now blessed with that change of collecting more USA Beach gear. After trying on leggings, pants, shirts, and everything you could imagine we finally got to our leg workout. As we were leaving and hopped in our Uber, I dropped three things just trying to get in the car and probably looked like we were stealing from the place.
We hit the grocery store for a couple of items on our bikes and found ourselves biking uphill - a lot. If you have never been to Manhattan going up the hill is a tough walk but now add groceries, a bike, and fresh off of a 4-hour flight & a leg day at the gym. Kristen took off up the hill but I found myself a new route, which is way less of a hill, more of a gradual slope that is now the route we will be taking. Right after we got back from the grocery store, I had a dinner reservation with an old friend from training indoor volleyball together a couple of summers ago. Dana Rettke is so kind and fun and it was fun to catch up. She took the overseas professional indoor volleyball route, the one I had always thought I was going to and it was so fun to hear more about what my life could have been. I should have attached a camera to us as we walked in the restaurant because she is 6’9 alongside my 6’4 stature, needless to say, we don’t blend in.
I got back to the house and Nuss was already tucked into bed and about to fall asleep at 9 PM. The next morning, we had an early USA practice with a couple of other teams that were out there for the MBO. We are used to our normal 2 pm practice in Louisiana to play in the hottest part of the day, so the early morning was different. By the way, this is the first USA women’s practice they have ever had. How crazy!
We were staying in Manhattan Beach and the practice was at the Hermosa pier. The bike down was fantastic, super easy and fast. We got to the court early to warm up and we are both in long sleeve shirts and the Californians are talking about how hot it was. Kristen and I looked at each other thinking, “they have to be joking”. I think it was about 60 degrees, we are used to practicing in a 110 heat index. On the way back to the house, following a solid two-hour practice that was pretty fast-paced, we had to walk our bikes up the hill. Our legs were dead and set us up for the rest of the day to be dead tired. Kristen was recovering in the massage chair trying to recover from our lift and next practice. Until… we get the best phone call any athlete can get. The USA trainer called and asked if we wanted the two massage slots that opened up. We jumped at the opportunity. We went to collect our two precious massage slots and do a light arm day. We have a couple of hours before our dinner plans. We are meeting up with two of our great friends from the USA training block that we went to last summer, Tim Brewster & Heath Hughes. That week of training was so special to me, specifically for the friendships that formed.
Wednesday morning rolled around and we made our way down the hills to practice on the Hermosa pier, we were staying about 2.5 miles away. The second time we came back was brutal, again we made it to the house with pit stains on our t-shirts after walking our bikes up the path. We hurried back to shower before our lunch and photoshoot with Ogio, our bag sponsor that we LOVE, and the Taylors. We had a delicious lunch on the Hermosa pier, then a giant beetle was swarming around us and the table. The bug would not stop, it ended up landing in Taylor Crabb’s hair – of course I am out of my chair sprinting away and Taylor just sat there unphased. We completed the video shoot and had some fun playing games and just getting some content for our social media. This was something that I had never seen coming, we have to do interviews and commercials and sometimes I literally can’t speak words. I even forgot my name when they were filming us this week.
We stopped by my favorite coffee spot in Hermosa, Java Man. I would highly recommend it! Then we made our way to a friend’s house for a home-cooked meal. She set up our housing arrangements and it was great to spend time with her and her family. She was so amazing and so helpful – thank you Megan!
Thursday – off day. The day before we play we usually take the day off from volleyball and workouts. Everyone does it differently but that’s what we have found that works out best for us. I woke up with the sun, as I have every day at 6 am and went to finish my puzzle and meet up with old teammates for a cup of coffee and we went to watch the MBO qualifier. Coffee Chronicles: Kristen finally liked her coffee! After adding some sweetener that she pulled out of her fanny pack. We were able to watch our friends, Heath, Jake/Mark & many more. I was just so happy to be out there and had such a full and happy heart getting to see all of my friends. Our swimsuit sponsor, Pepper Swimwear was out there, it was so nice to meet with them in person for some new suits. We have been messaging and emailing back and forth for about a year and we finally got to listen to their vision for the company. They are our favorite bikini bottoms and they strike a soft spot with us – they are best friends that just love volleyball and started the business together.
We met up with some of my family that came out from Nebraska to have a nice lunch. They had so many questions for us. To us, we don’t feel like our lives are that crazy, but on the outside looking in, apparently what we do is insane to most people.
-Mary and Carol (my 2 aunts that came) told us at lunch that they love to read our blogs and always have a competition to see who sees and reads it first and then they chat about it. I wonder who will win this time?! We love to hear the feedback and we are so happy to share our crazy journey.
We came back to the house to welcome our parents to town. We caught up and chatted before we had to finish the rest of our Ogio shoot. I even convinced Audrey, Kristen’s mom, that she was going to have to be in on the videos, she was so nervous. When the videographer showed up, she was so relieved that she didn’t have to be on film! Dinner time! Fritto Misto is always a must when we are in the Manhattan area. It’s so good, but one of those meals that you definitely have to unbuckle your belt after you leave! On our way, Audrey pointed out all of the Telsars that she saw. Yes, I typed it TelsaR. Let me tell you, there are a lot of Telsas in the Manhattan Beach area. Kristen finally corrected her after her tenth “Oh my gosh look another Telsar”. We stopped at Vons, or Varns as Audrey likes to add R’s to any word for some groceries. Kristen snuck up behind me and scared the crap out of me and I screamed in the middle of the store! It wouldn’t be a tournament weekend without Kristen finding a way to mess with me.
Friday means Gameday! We had two games on Friday, with 32 teams instead of 16 which just means more teams, more games, and more delays. After the first match started late, we were trying to time out our eating time for lunch and then the next set of matches were all pushed back. Flexibility is a must with beach volleyball. However, we were blessed with the presence of our old teammate Olivia Ordonez previously Powers, and her beautiful baby Jane. Unfortunately, when you have a baby, you turn invisible to me until I say hi to the baby and then I realize that I should probably say hello! After two wins we were set for the day and off to shower before a big family and friend dinner at Simmzys. After the week out in California and the sun waking me up early every day mixed with two games, I almost fell asleep at the table. Before we both passed out the parents told us to head home and get some rest while they all get to continue chatting and having a blast on their vacation.
Saturday morning, we had an early game against Flint and Cheng. We lost and that sent us into the contender's bracket. Nothing we hadn’t seen before, but that just means more games and more strain on the body. But we wanted all 3 games that day to push through to Championship Sunday. The Brazilian duo were up next, we have seen them so many times! There was no way that we would leave a tournament without matching up against them. The sand was starting to heat up with all the iron in the dark Manhattan Beach sand it gets pretty toasty. We walked into the players tent and people were commenting on our baby feet and wearing the sand socks. But, last year at MBO I lost two toenails from hot sand and I was not about to do that again. I had to wait a very long time before I would show up for a pedicure because my toenails were growing back at a turtle’s pace.
It was the last battle of the day against VanWinden and Turner. They are a new pair that we had seen separately but never together. It was a long three set battle – the battle that sent the winner to Championship Sunday and the loser home! It was a fun and intense match; we had dinner reservations but we had to cancel and our wonderful moms picked up some Italian food and delivered it straight to the house for us. We are so fortunate to have so many people come and help us out in every way imaginable.
We made it to Championship Sunday. But that was not our only goal for the weekend, we were up against Zana and Brandie. We lost in two in two tight matches. Things were not falling our way and we weren’t executing at a high enough caliber to win. We took some time to decompress and then we went with our family and friends to enjoy their company. We had some drinks - food - laughs and fun at Shellbacks Tavern! Then we went out to the hotel pool for a big circle of singing, jokes, and more fun. It was only 4 pm and we had to go get coffee before we fell asleep midsentence at 4 in the afternoon. It’s a tough balance of giving everything you have on the court and then finding enough energy to spend time with the people we love and care about that came to support us.
Finally went home to shower and we met up with some of the LSU girls and fellow beach volleyballers - especially the champs Tri and Trevor. We snuck into the MB creamery for a sweet treat and then off to dinner at 9 pm at none other than In-N-Out before turning in. We were beat and completely exhausted after 6 dog fights this weekend.
Once again, we are not happy with our finish - but that’s how we get to be where we want to be with consistency. Like we always say - win or lose - we have to go back out to practice and go get better!
By: Taryn Kloth
