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Chase Budinger and Miles Evans are moving on.
The American duo closed out Australia’s Zachery Schubert and Thomas Hodges in their Lucky Loser Match on Saturday night to officially secure their spot in the knockout round at the Paris Olympics. Budinger and Evans won their match 21-19, 21-17 in straight sets to advance to the Round of 16 and keep their hopes at a medal alive.
Budinger and Evans are the second American men’s duo to reach the knockout round, following Miles Partain and Andy Benesh. Those four are attempting to become the first American men to medal in beach volleyball since the 2008 Games in China.
“I really think that we just got back to what got us here, and that’s optioning the ball, going for our serves and siding out, and that’s what our whole focus was,” Budinger said on the USA Network after the win. “We were hyper focused throughout this match, and it allowed us to be more free.”
Budinger — who played basketball at Arizona before a seven-year career in the NBA — and Evans fell to Spain’s Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira in straight sets Friday to drop to 1-2 in pool play. That sent the American duo into Saturday’s play-in game with Australia. Schubert and Hodges also finished in third in Pool C standings with a 1-2 record.
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Australia jumped out early in the first set and seemed a step ahead. Schubert and Hodges held a two-point lead for much of the game, and looked poised to take the advantage out of the gate. Finally, though, Budinger came through. He expertly blocked a pair of shots at the net to suddenly tie the game up 18-18, and then he blocked two in a row on the same point to put the United States back up for the first time since the opening point of the night.
Then after a timeout, Budinger came through again and slammed it down at the net for a third straight point. They didn’t close it out right away, but Evans won the second set point with a huge closer to give the Americans the early lead with the 21-19 win. That capped a 5-1 run, which completely flipped the game around down the stretch.
That run carried over through the break and extended into a 19-13 advantage for the Americans, which put them up by three midway through the second game. Though Australia hung in there for a bit, Evans and Budinger held on the rest of the way. Evans even came up with a wild dig to save what should have been an Australian point to push them to a 19-15 lead, which allowed them to quickly close out the win in straight sets.
Partain and Benesh will take on Italy’s Paolo Nicolai and Samuele Cottafava in their Round of 16 match on Monday. Budinger and Evans will take on either Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum or Qatar’s Ahmed Tijan and Cherif Younousse on Monday.