The penultimate partnership domino of major significance for the American men has fallen: Chase Budinger and Miles Evans are officially a team for the 2023 beach volleyball season.
The move seemed to be inevitable, given the players available who have both international and AVP points and a proven ability to win at both levels. Budinger competed with Troy Field in 2022, and after a hot start in Austin, where they made the final and were leading Phil Dalhausser and Andy Benesh until late in the first set, fizzled a bit. That was the only final they’d make, tacking on a pair of thirds and a pair of fifths as well. Internationally, they had one finish better than ninth, a silver at the Maldives Challenge in mid-October.
Evans hopped around in 2022, playing eight AVPs and seven Beach Pro Tour events with five different partners — Ed Ratledge, Andy Benesh, Avery Drost, Logan Webber, and Paul Lotman — to mixed results. He picked up a pair of silvers on the Beach Pro Tour in Futures events with Benesh and Webber, won an AVP Tour Series in Denver with Benesh, and finished third at the Manhattan Beach Open with Benesh. His fourth at the Torquay Elite 16 with Lotman marked his best international finish in terms of points. Lotman, however, is with Silila Tucker — he will be making an appearance on SANDCAST soon — Benesh with Miles Partain, and Webber with Evan Cory.
Everything about the partnership makes sense. Chase Budinger is an excellent left-side blocker –he also proved talented on the right with Field as well, but the majority of his success is on the left — while Evans is an elite right-side defender. Both have international and domestic points. Both have medaled in international events and have won an AVP (Evans’ Tour Series win in Denver is close to the strength of field that AVP San Francisco used to have; if there’s a Tour Series that counts as a legitimate win, it’s Denver).
The only real free agent on the market for the men, then, is Field.
And now we wait.