MBO Recap: Cruz-Brasher, Crabb-Benesh Go Thanos Mode: INEVITABLE

They were inevitable. Both of them.
Amid all the carnage, amid all those upsets, amid the second-highest seeded semifinal in Manhattan Beach Open history, Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher remained inevitable. A third straight MBO title, a feat only Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor have done before. A championship won without dropping a set, a feat not accomplished since April Ross and Jen Fopma did so in 2015.
Amid all the carnage, amid all those upsets, amid the No. 1 seed dropping in the first round, Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh remained inevitable. A ninth straight MBO championship match that featured a Crabb. An eleventh straight that featured a Hawaiian who cut his teeth at the Outrigger Canoe Club. A second Manhattan title for Crabb, the first for Benesh. A title won without dropping a set, a feat not accomplished since Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena did so in 2015.
It's not often in sports that there are two teams of their respective genders who can, with near unanimity, be viewed as the undisputed best.
Kristen Cruz and Taryn Brasher are the best women’s beach volleyball team in the world, and there is scant little evidence to the contrary.
Taylor Crabb and Andy Benesh are the best men’s beach volleyball team in the United States, and there is, objectively speaing, zero evidence to the contrary: A perfect 11-0 record on domestic soil and two AVP titles in the 2026 season.
The fact that both teams pulled off an unblemished run to a Manhattan Beach Open title while the rest of the favorites wavered and fell to surprising contenders speaks further to their separation from the rest of the field. Cruz and Brasher had just three sets all tournament decided by two points, while the final was a comfortable 21-18, 21-16 victory over No. 2 Kelly Cheng and Megan Kraft.
Crabb and Benesh were somehow even smoother, blasting opponents by a total of 80 points, smothering Gage Basey and Thomas Hurst, 21-14, 21-13 in a match it seemed the underdogs had no chance. Maybe they didn’t.
Maybe no one did.
This was the year of the inevitable, the proverbial unstoppable forces meeting no immovable objects. Every team was movable, malleable, bending and bowing to the wills of Cruz and Brasher, Crabb and Benesh. Didn’t matter that this was alas the tournament Gage and Basey proved their flash and sizzle could perform at the highest level of the AVP. Didn’t matter that Cheng and Kraft were playing as well as they have played in their fantastic new partnership. Didn’t matter that Abby Van Winkle and Torrey Van Winden were on a run sprinkled with pixie dust, and that Chaim Schalk and James Shaw had found that something that propelled them to Elite medals in 2025.
They were Thanos, both.
And when they snapped their fingers, they left in their wake a field vanquished, a landscape dominated.
They left with their names scheduled to be etched into the Manhattan Pier.
They left as the most inevitable champions in more than a decade.

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