Language

         

 Advertising byAdpathway

Silila Tucker, Teegan Van Gunst named 2022 Eric Zaun Award winners

1 year ago 165

PROTECT YOUR DNA WITH QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY

Orgo-Life the new way to the future

  Advertising by Adpathway

HERMOSA BEACH, Calif. — On a warm and breezy Tuesday night in Hermosa Beach, Calif., the litter of beach volleyball road dogs grew just a bit larger. Silila Tucker, a 27-year-old from Hawai’i, and Teegan Van Gunst, another 27-year-old from Georgia, were announced as the winners of the annual Eric Zaun Award.

And so the spirit of the Road Dog carries on.

Click here for more information about the Eric Zaun Award

Since Zaun’s death in the summer of 2019, 15 players have been named Eric Zaun Award winners, a list that includes Van Gunst’s partner this season, Aurora Davis, who used the bulk of her funds from the award to purchase a flight to Bonaire, where she would win a NORCECA gold medal in 2019 with Allie Wheeler.

Three years later, Davis helped another player become a winner of the Eric Zaun Award. Van Gunst, who played all eight of her AVP events this season with Davis, fit the mold for what we seek in a Zaun Award candidate, which isn’t a complicated mold. Simply put, she got after it, playing in 14 tournaments this season, all but one of which were domestic. The only international tournament she played? A NORCECA in Nicaragua, which she promptly won with Katie Lindstrom. Neither the setting nor surface mattered: She’d win on whatever you put her on, winning the 30th annual Pottstown Rumble — a Zaun favorite — with Davis. She took a career-high on the AVP with a second at the AVP Atlantic City Tour Series, then made another semifinal in Virginia Beach, finishing third. She closed the season just as well, with a third in Laguna alongside Kim Hildreth, an impressive feat given she’d never before played with Hildreth, and stumped a number of elite teams en route to the semifinals.

Her prize money this season ($9,100) more than quadrupled her previous career-high, set in 2019, a total that does not include “unofficial” tournaments such as Pottstown, Laguna, or any of the other AVPAmerica events in which she collected a paycheck. All of that is a long way of saying that Van Gunst’s stock in beach volleyball is on the rise, as is her fellow winner, Silila Tucker.

Teegan Van Gujnst-Aurora DavisTeagan van Gunst

Tucker’s season had a bit more of a journeyman’s element to it. He played eight AVP’s with three different partners who hailed from three different states: Lev Priima, Pete Connole, Andrew Dentler. He won the Laguna Open with Andy Benesh, dropping just two sets along the way. He, too, set a career-high in prize money, more than doubling his previous career-high which, again, does not even include the sizable paycheck from Laguna.

But it’s not just the on-court performances that make one an excellent applicant for the Zaun Award. How they live their lives is essentially a breathing application. Katie Spieler, Jon Mesko, and I — the Eric Zaun Award committee, so to speak — don’t accept applications for the award; we take nominations throughout the year and keep an eye on them, not only as players but as human beings.

How do they live their lives — with upstanding character or suspect morals?

How do they approach the game — as a professional or a partier?

How do they treat those around them — with respect or disdain?

Do they add to the world or do they take?

How do they work — hard or hardly at all?

How do they treat beach volleyball — as a gift or a given?

They checked all the boxes.

And now they’re officially Road Dogs.

Silila TuckerSilila Tucker/Rick Atwood photo

Previous Eric Zaun Award winners

Andy Benesh
Seain Cook
Evan Cory
Savvy Simo
Kristen Nuss
Taryn Kloth
Crissy Jones
Kelly Reeves
Logan Webber
Megan Nash
Kacey Losik
Aurora Davis
JM Plummer

Editor’s note: For more about Eric Zaun, please read Avery Drost’s tribute to his friend and then Travis Mewhirter’s story a year after his death.

Read Entire Article

         

        

HOW TO FIGHT BACK WITH THE 5G  

Protect your whole family with Quantum Orgo-Life® devices

  Advertising by Adpathway