Evan Cory is playing beach volleyball his own damn way in 2024

HERMOSA BEACH, California — Evan Cory did all of the right things. Checked every box in the How to Become a Professional Beach Volleyball Player handbook.

The rising star out of Louisiana made the jump from Metairie to Hermosa Beach, the heartland of beach volleyball. He’d hired a trainer. Worked his way into the USA Volleyball pipeline. Become a pupil of Scott Davenport, one of the most sought-out coaches in America, a man who knew how to play volleyball the proper way. He had the bona fides to prove it — World Champs winners, Olympic berths, two AVP titles in the same tournament.

So that’s what Cory did. Followed that playbook all the way, knowing, in his mind, it was the right thing to do.

Yet feeling, in his heart and soul, that something wasn’t quite right.

“I feel like I didn’t have ownership of my own game and where I was heading,” he said.

But still: It was the right thing. He was playing the right way. Smart. Strategical. So the lightning rod with the unmistakable blue nose and vociferous trash talk and occasional peacocking with the swinging gold chain became sort of muted. Quiet. The success he enjoyed in 2021 with Logan Webber, cleaning up all of the AVPNext Golds and major independent tournaments, had been continued with Bill Kolinske in 2022. But when he and Webber got back together and opened the 2023 season flat, with three straight qualifier losses on the Beach Pro Tour and a 13th at AVP Huntington Beach, Cory felt as if the momentum he had built over the previous two years came undone.

“The expectation is that you’re going to perform, and then for the first four or five months of the season, you don’t, so things start falling apart,” Cory said. “Didn’t feel like we were clicking with our system and then it felt like we were separating apart so it made sense to go separate ways, at least in my head.”

If he could do it again, time travel back to early summer of 2023, he’d have done things differently. He’d have chosen to weather the ups and downs with Webber, grew as a team. But there was a talented blocker available in Troy Field, one who, make no mistake, can bring energy to any beach volleyball match he’s in. The McKibbin Brothers wondered, in a YouTube video, if Cory and Field comprised “the most explosive beach volleyball team.” The highlights were unmistakably sensational, though their results were mixed. Not bad, just not great. Cory still felt amiss, as if he were playing dress-up of what a beach volleyball player should be rather than simply being one himself.

“I think last year was super interesting for me. If you look at the results, it wasn’t really a slump, it was just the same from the year before,” he said. “It’s crazy, you think it’s terrible and then it really wasn’t that terrible. You expect at this stage in your career to continuously get better. It didn’t ever feel like I got into a groove or a rhythm.

“One of the things that made me good in the beginning, and what’s going to continue making me good, is that I’m not the typical person from California. I’m not going to play that typical style. I’ll be a little bit more rowdy, a bit more aggressive and take more chances. Last year it was all about being smart and not taking chances and not taking risks but that’s where I can separate myself. Sometimes I fall on my face but it gives me a little bit of a boost. Finding my identity as a player, as a person out here. Last year was a big figuring out year.”

This off-season, the puzzle pieces of Cory’s game fell back into place. His mentor and coach, Joey Keener, a charismatic Cajun Yoda when it comes to volleyball, encouraged Cory to get back to playing like the kid who signed to play for Lincoln Memorial and become the first male out of Louisiana to earn a college scholarship to play volleyball, the one who cleaned up all of the local beach tournaments when he still had to bum rides from the players he’d soon be beating. He built a team, bringing on a trainer in Greg Herceg, a nutritionist in Sarah Amidon, and a coach on the West Coast who knew where he’d come from and how he plays when he’s at his best. In the small sample size that has been this 2024 season, his custom-fit approach has paid off.

He and Wyatt Harrison qualified for a string of NORCECAs, taking two silvers and a bronze. But it was in the qualifiers that they truly earned their keep, beating, among other notable pairs, Avery Drost and Cody Caldwell, Chase Frishman and Bill Kolinske, Caldwell and Troy Field — elite teams all. In the finals of the most recent NORCECA, in Juan Dolio, Dominican Republic, they pushed Cuba’s Jorge Alayo and Noslen Diaz, one of the hottest teams in the world, to three.

“One of the biggest things for me as a player is having a coach that feels super invested and is going to be your biggest supporter in those moments where you might have a little bit of self-doubt, because it’s going to creep in at some point,” Cory said. “Having that system and those people around you that no matter where you’re at in volleyball, you have that system where you’re not only going to rely on volleyball for confidence.”

Pompilio Mercadante was never worried about Cory’s perceived slump in 2023. Neither was the Alison Cerutti, the Brazilian coach’s star student. In the lead-up to the 2023 Laguna Open, Cory was training alongside Drost, who has worked with Mercadante for years. They’d regularly work in with Alison, who was then playing with Billy Allen.

Alison, one of the greatest blockers to ever touch a beach, loved Cory’s style, his energy. Loved the way he played. They’re passionate people, Brazilians. Cory would fit in nicely. Alison mentioned to Pompilio that Cory would be a worthy candidate to defend for him next year.

Was Evan interested?

Are you kidding?

“As far as you look at the Karch [Kiraly] and Phil [Dalhausser] of Brazil, it would have to be Ricardo [Santos], Emanuel [Rego] and Alison. It’s hard to decipher between those three because of how storied they all are,” Cory said. “Getting to play with Alison is going to be super exciting for me because I’ve never had a partner of that caliber as far as being experienced, having those types of accolades, being proven on the biggest stages. Two, getting to play with arguably the best blocker of all time. He’s gotta be top three. You look at a Mount Rushmore of blockers and you get to play with one? You’re going to take that opportunity.”

On Friday, Cory and Alison will be making their debut as the most exciting new partnership on the AVP Tour. The six seed, they are well into the main draw, a favorite to be in the semifinals on Sunday. Regardless how their first event goes, Cory will not have the three-month break his main draw peers do on the AVP. Instead, he’ll be hitting Brazil with Alison, playing on Brazil’s domestic tour, training with world No. 6 Evandro Goncalves and Arthur Mariano in their prep for the Olympic Games.

“I’m not really sure what to expect,” Cory said. “I don’t want to expect anything, I just want to take it all in.”

And so he will, drinking in this season from the firehose of experiences it will be sure to provide, playing volleyball, alas, his own damn way.