SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter

Welcome back to Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, where Travis Mewhirter is recapping the Rio Elite. Starting off the top, however, breaking news: Anders Mol has signed an indoor contract with the Italian Club Verona, so there's that. And:

• Martins Plavins and Kristians Fokerots make everything look easy
• Katja Stam and Raisa Schoon shine with their first Elite gold medal since Doha of 2023
• The French men are rising, with a si...

Welcome, or BEMVINDO! to the Rio Elite, where Travis Mewhirter is back in his SANDCAST Hotel Headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, talking:

• Carol and Rebecca on an absolute tour de force in Rio, where nobody has even scored more than 15 points on them yet
• Evan Cory and Derek Bradford shining with a 2-1 pool play performance and a huge win over Andre and Renato
• The USA Volleyball women pushing 8 teams into the round of 16
• An UNBELIEV...

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter or, as they say in the local language here in Rio de Janeiro, BEMVINDO!

We are on site for the Rio Elite, previewing and chatting:

• How the Rio Elite is a heavyweight battle between the USA and Brazilian women
• Whether this is the final sendoff of James Shaw and Miles Partain
• The wide open men's field, which does not include David Ahman and Jonatan H...

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, where, for the first time the entire year, Travis is back in the studio, where he's hanging with Kyle Friend, answering all of your fan questions for the July Mailbag. A sampler:

• Is Russia back on the Beach Pro Tour?
• How is Olympic qualifying going to work for LA 2028?
• Is there a fall event or not for the Beach Pro Tour?
• Have Chase Budinger and Tr...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, features Miles Partain, who has rekindled his passion for the game of beach volleyball. We're sitting down in Gstaad, chatting:

• How Miles has rediscovered his love of volleyball again
• His partnership with James Shaw
• How a baseball pitching coach has changed his offensive game in beach volleyball
• When he is going to solidify his partnership decisio...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter -- and Kyle Friend, in this case -- features Savvy Cory, who is currently having the best year of her career alongside her former UCLA teammate Devon Newberry.

Chapters with Savvy Cory, Kyle Friend, and Tri Bourne
00:00 Reconnecting and Reflecting on Recent Travels
02:54 The Challenges of Competitive Volleyball
06:02 Understanding the Point ...

We have our final recap from the Gstaad Elite, where Travis Mewhirter and Kyle Friend sit down to chat:

• Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher completed their three-peat of Gstaad gold medals
• Kelly Cheng and Megan Kraft slaying almost every demon en route to a silver medal in Gstaad
• Alex Brouwer's magic, where the universe seemed to be conspiring for him to win his first Gstaad gold medal in 14 years trying alongside Stefan Boermans
• T...

Welcome back to the Huus Hotel in Gstaad, where Travis Mewhirter and Kyle Friend chat well past sundown -- as you can see -- about the quarterfinals and men's semifinals at the Gstaad Elite, where:

• Three USA Volleyball women's teams -- Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher, Kelly Cheng and Megan Kraft, Lexy Denaburg and Julia Donlin -- have made the semifinals
• Another USA Volleyball team, Chase Budinger and Trevor Crabb, going on an ...

Day three at the Gstaad Elite was a positively bonkers one, as there were upsets, upsets everywhere, and hardly a favorite to survive -- unless, of course, you're a USA women's team, in which case, you're just fine. Travis Mewhirter and Kyle Friend recap a wild day in Switzerland, where:

• Arthur and Evandro shock Sweden's David Ahman and Jonatan Hellvig...right after Israel's Kevin Cuzmiciov and Eylon Elazar stunned Latvia's Ma...

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, and welcome back to the Gstaad Elite, the greatest place on Earth. We're recapping an action-packed opening day in Gstaad, where:

• Trevor Crabb and Chase Budinger delivered an enormous day one, qualifying with a win over Adrian Heidrich and Yves Haussener and then handling Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh with ease
• Tina Graudina continues thriving here...

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter and, far more important, welcome to the Beach Volleyball World Gstaad Elite!! Greatest place on planet Earth, it's worth every single penny, y'all.

On this episode, I'm chatting:

• The USA Volleyball contingent who has descended upon Gstaad in record-breaking force, with six American women straight into the main draw, and another seven potentially co...

This episode of SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter features Jacob LaBouliere, USA Volleyball's next big blocker -- and we mean BIG blocker -- who has already made a quick name for himself both on the AVP and Beach Pro Tour. They're talking:

• Where LaBouliere just appeared from
• How he gave up a good job as an electrical engineer to pursue professional beach volleyball
• Studying under Chase Budinger an...

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, where we get off the sand for a second and delve into the world of NCAA Indoor Volleyball, chatting with Dan Fisher, the architect of the Pitt Volleyball dynasty that has won 7 ACC Championships in the past 9 years, made five straight final fours, and has won 82% of the matches since Fisher became the head coach.

How'd he do it?

Through high standards,...

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, where, rather than Travis, it's our Amigo, Kyle Friend in the studio, answering all of your fan questions for our June beach volleyball mailbag episode. They're chatting:

• Favorite newcomers in beach volleyball, both on the AVP and Beach Pro Tour
• Who they think will make the LA 2028 podium
• The impact of Sweden and Norway on beach volleyball
• If Tayl...

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, and welcome back to one of our most-anticipated annual guests: Gary Green. We're talking building resilience in an anxious world.

Key topics from the episode with Dr. Gary Green include

• Rise in anxiety and mental health issues among students post-COVID
• The importance of relationships and social support for resilience
• Strategies for coaches to buil...

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, and welcome back to our fourth semi-annual edition of SANDCASTING Your Brains Out with John Mayer and Billy Allen, the hosts of Coach Your Brains Out. Mayer is the head coach of the LMU Beach Volleyball team, while Allen is the assistant -- and AVCA Assistant Coach of the Year! -- at Stanford. We're recapping the NCAA Beach Volleyball season, where May...

Welcome back to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, where Travis is talking a big weekend with the AVP debuting its Heritage events in Huntington Beach and plenty to talk about there, and the Beach Pro Tour continuing its season at the Xiamen Challenge, where AK and Alexis stayed PERFECT with another gold medal. We're chatting:

• Savvy Cory and Evan Cory having the biggest family weekend ever
• Thamela...

Welcome to the fan question, or mailbag, episode of SANDCAST, where Travis Mewhirter takes on all of your beach volleyball and volleyball questions and attempts to answer them as best as he can. This week, he's chatting:

• Is the AVP allowing international players a good thing or bad thing for beach volleyball? (hint: It's AWESOME)
• Could this year's Olympic qualifying for the USA Volleyball women be the most competitive yet?
• Are...

Welcome to SANDCAST: Beach Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter, where we have a breakdown of the most recent -- and very full -- weekend of beach volleyball, which includes:

• UCLA beach volleyball's dominant showing in Gulf Shores, winning their first NCAA Championship since 2019. Jenny Johnson Jordan has now won as a player, assistant coach, and head coach
• Audrey Koenig and Alexis Durish getting snubbed as the Play...