Laguna Open celebrates 70 years of playing volleyball in the sand
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Main Beach attracts a crowd with or without an event, but the hundreds lining the boardwalk and the inland portion of the sand were an indicator of an additional draw this weekend.
Downtown Laguna Beach’s coastline had once again become a place to watch top volleyball talent dig, dive and jump, a familiar sight for a community that has hosted a tournament for as long as Disneyland has been around.
The 70th annual Laguna Open is in the books, adding to the sport’s rich history in town and providing more memories for those who have grown up watching it.
Now an AVP Contender event, the tournament received great interest to the tune of 114 registered teams. Patrick Canavan, a co-director of the tournament along with Marty Suan, noted they had been hoping for 80 teams. After the city allowed for a seventh court for the three-day competition at Main Beach, they were able to accept 104 teams.
“There’s not a day where I don’t think, ‘Patrick, you were handed the keys to the world’s longest-running volleyball tournament, like, you have to make good decisions,’” Canavan said. “I look at this as a public trust. They’ve entrusted me with this, and I need to build this up to a level that when I eventually hand this off, that person can then take it to the next level and do it better than I did. That’s my goal.”
Canavan and Suan took over the tournament’s reins three years ago from Kirk Morgan, who served as its director from 2010 to 2022. Canavan met Morgan while taking a volleyball class run by the latter coming out of the coronavirus pandemic in 2021.
“I wanted to find that balance of authenticity and also corporate sponsorship,” Canavan said. “I know that’s not an easy thing to pull off, but I wanted to get it to the point where I could attract top-tier brands and sponsors to contribute to the event, so I could bring in the best players, and then that would ... raise the visibility of not just Laguna Open, but the game, and to bring the best of the volleyball world to our beach.”
The tournament had a prize pool of $60,000 this year, split evenly between the men’s and the women’s competitions. It was distributed on a sliding scale to award some prize money to every team that qualified for the 16-team main draw, with the winners taking home $8,000, the finalists earning $5,000 and the semifinalists receiving $3,000.
Alex Ukkelberg and Logan Webber beat Dylan Maarek and Lev Priima, 21-15, 21-12, in the men’s final.
On a show court on the south side of the Main Beach lifeguard tower, public address announcer Rob Espero could be heard praising Webber for “blocking out everything except the sun” late in a 21-18, 21-13 semifinal win against Avery Drost and Diego Perez on Sunday. The other semifinalists were Peter Connole and Djordje Klasnic.
Canavan added that the city provided attendance figures throughout the day. The crowd peaked at about 1,700 people during the semifinals and finals, with between 7,000 and 9,000 people stopping to watch the action on at least one of the courts.
Alexa Fernandez and Sally Perez edged Morgan Chacon and Alaina Chacon, 19-21, 23-21, 15-9, for the women’s title. The semifinalists were Kelley Kolinske and Kyra Zaengle, as well as the tandem of Piper Ferch and Teegan Van Gunst.
Laguna Beach volleyball fans enjoyed local favorites to root for, including Zaengle, a recent graduate now at USC, and Lexi McKeown, who competed at Cal after being named the Female Athlete of the Year at Laguna Beach High in 2018.
“I remember when I was younger, and I used to watch Chase Frishman play in the Laguna Open,” Zaengle said. “It’s such an amazing thing to see a local play in that tournament because you see the whole crowd is going crazy for them. It’s so special, and it’s so cool.”
Growing up in a volleyball family, Zaengle debuted at the tournament in the Battle of the Beaches, a friendly competition of four-on-four volleyball, two years ago. She represented Main Beach on that occasion in the local showcase that also features residents of the neighborhoods of Emerald Bay, Three Arch Bay and Victoria Beach.
Zaengle, whose mother Neda Eaton played setter at Biola University, said the Laguna Open is commonly referred to as the “prettiest tournament.”
“I think that has a lot of truth to it,” she said.
