The ice at Wollman Rink is gone and the weather is heating up just in time for four Association of Volleyball Professionals (AVP) teams to showcase their skills in the heart of the Big Apple.
For the second year in a row, the AVP Tour is hosting professional beach volleyball at Wollman Rink in New York City’s Central Park.
Enter the New York Nitro, the team of four professional beach volleyball players (Molly Shaw, Toni Rodriguez, James Shaw and Chaim Schalk) who will be one of four AVP teams competing in Central Park from July 18-19.
The Nitro are unique in that the team features a married couple and an engaged couple; Molly has been married to James since September 2023 and Toni and Chaim will be getting married in October.
In the AVP, each team of four is made up of a women’s duo and a men’s duo and each duo plays two same-gender matches per weekend.
The women’s duo for the New York Nitro includes Molly Shaw and Toni Rodriguez, who will play their first match at 3 p.m. on Saturday July 18 against the women’s duo for the Austin Aces.
Then, the men’s duo of James Shaw and Chaim Schalk, a 2016 Rio Olympian, will play the Aces men’s duo right after at 4 p.m.
Central Park will be the Nitro’s last league event of the 2026 AVP season.
Without further ado, let’s learn more about the New York Nitro’s women’s duo.
Molly’s Journey
Molly Shaw grew up as Molly Turner, the youngest in a family of three girls in Naperville, Illinois. One of those sisters, Kelly, was a star indoor volleyball player in high school.
In high school, Molly encountered one of the biggest setbacks of her life: getting cut from the Neuqua Valley High School indoor volleyball team.
“Everything I’ve tried in this sport, the first thing that I’ve gotten is a ‘No’ or a hands up and every time I was like no, I got to keep pushing and yeah, that’s where it started. It was tough especially since my oldest sister was a star on the team so I think it was a bit of a shock for my family and they were kind of disappointed. That’s when I started to play beach volleyball when I got cut, so it kind of led me here.”
Despite encountering a difficult setback as a teenager, Molly didn’t give up.
Instead, she took a gamble.
“I got cut and someone told me to try out beach volleyball. There was a local club that taught beach volleyball. I didn’t want to play, but my mom told me to try four practices and if I hated it, she’d let me quit forever. I ended up loving it!”
Molly went on to play four years of beach volleyball at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona where she was a two-time All-American.
Playing in College is a commitment, but playing professionally is an even bigger commitment. After attending a pro beach volleyball event in Huntington Beach, California, Molly knew what she wanted to do with her life.
“I caught wind about the AVP actually. Someone told me there was a tournament in Huntington and I begged three of my friends. I was like can we please drive to Huntington this weekend, I really want to see everyone compete and we drove out to Huntington from Arizona and watched a couple of legends play. I just was sitting on center court and I was like I want to be here, this is what I want to do.”
Initially, Molly’s parents thought she was crazy for wanting to move to California and pursue a career in pro beach volleyball.
But each time Molly pitched it to them, they softened until they said “OK, if you’re going to move out there, you’ve got to find a job.”
Molly has lived in California ever since.
This season is Molly’s 11th as a professional and her second season partnering with Toni Rodriguez.
Toni’s Journey
Toni Rodriguez comes from the small, unincorporated community of St. Amant, Louisiana, which is 25 miles from the state’s capital city, Baton Rouge.
Toni grew up playing several different sports including softball and track and field. She was blessed with above average height and athleticism which made the women’s indoor volleyball coach at St. Amant High School ask her to try out.
“By the end of my freshman year I ended up making varsity and I just fell in love with the sport.”
Volleyball isn’t the only sport Toni excelled at. She was a three-sport athlete at St. Amant. She played indoor volleyball, women’s basketball and track & field and won three district championships with the volleyball team.
Four years later, Toni ended up making it into Louisiana State University (LSU), following in the footsteps of her father Charles and sister Brandy.
A season-ending injury during her sophomore season didn’t stop Toni from becoming a star outside hitter for the LSU Volleyball team her junior and senior years, finishing second on her team in kills with 238 in 2018.
After her senior year of college, Toni already had mapped out a beach volleyball career. She had wanted to play beach in college but injuries derailed that. So, she made her beach volleyball professional debut in 2019 and won her first medal, a Bronze in 2022 alongside Zana Muno in a World Tour futures event.
Toni explained the jump she made from indoor to beach.
“It’s a really big transition. A lot of people don’t really understand how hard it is to go from indoor to beach. It’s honestly like a completely different sport and obviously like, you do a lot of the same things like passing, setting and attacking, but obviously it’s a different game when you’re only playing with two people on sand with different conditions like rain, wind and sun. Yeah, it was definitely a hard transition but I feel like once you just get out there and start doing it, you can see progress pretty quickly coming from indoor to beach. So, I was just lucky enough to be able to do that at LSU and have really amazing coaches that helped me along the way and helped me to get to where I am today.”
In the middle of the 2022 AVP season, Toni suffered a season-ending injury but, she rebounded nicely in 2023, earning a Silver medal in a World Tour Challenge event.
The 2024 season was the inaugural AVP season and Toni’s most successful season as a pro to date. Alongside partner Geena Urango, the duo went 4-4 and finished strong, winning a pair of matches at the end of the season which included winning the ‘Golden Set’ and the league championships.
Injuries hit Toni hard again last year, as she suffered a dislocated shoulder and torn capsule in a league event in San Diego. She had surgery last June and described the rehab process as very hard.
“It was just a really long process and mentally, I had a lot of hard days. Like I said, I’ve had a lot of rehabs and recoveries already throughout my career. I think it was just hard in a lot of ways, of feeling like ‘gosh I have to do this again’ and like ‘why.’ You ask yourself these questions but at the end of the day I just hit my one-year post-operation and my shoulder is probably better than it was before I got injured so I’m trying to look at it as a positive now.”
This season is Toni’s seventh as a professional and coming into this year, she has made the podium four straight years in World Tour events.
Strong Bonds on a Unique Team
While the opponents the Nitro will face this weekend have earned all the recent accolades, the Shaws, Rodriguez and Schalk have a unique thing going for them: Love for each other and passion for the sport.
Toni expressed her gratitude to the AVP for putting her on a team with her fiancé, Chaim Schalk.
“It’s been really fun to play on the same team as him… I just feel really lucky that the AVP decided to put us together and obviously our partners are also married so it’s just like a fun team. We have a lot of good camaraderie and I think we really love supporting each other already so it just makes it easy.”
Molly added her own perspective on what it means to be on a team with her husband, James Shaw.
“He’s had a lot of injuries and a lot of things that have set him back and him and I both, we’re just trying to enjoy the moment and understand like what it took to get to this spot of being a professional and being on the same team as a married couple is so cool.”
Molly also added that for her husband and herself, “getting to travel together is the best.”
The Nitro have been busy since the AVP season began on May 15. They have played in three league events: Belmar, Aspen, Las Vegas. The three events took place in the span of three weeks and the Nitro traveled a total of 2,595 miles.
Toni and Molly also have had success together as a professional duo on the World Tour. Two years ago, Toni and Molly played three World Tour Challenge events together where they won a silver, bronze and gold medal.
“Back in 2024 we won three consecutive medals on the road together and she got injured last year. I knew that she was coming back and she was in a better place physically so I wanted to test it out this year and see if we could kind of get that going again, that same vibe that we had and it’s been fun playing together.”
Toni described the strengths of Molly’s game and how the two complement each other on the court.
“She’s a very fast defender and digs a lot of balls, whereas I am the blocker and I’m up at the net but I’d say I’m a pretty dynamic blocker and so I bring some of the power, she brings some of the shots and the finesse and we’re both really great servers as well…I also think that she brings a lot of passion and she has very good energy on the court and I do as well. We complement each other super well in the fact that we really want to celebrate each other and we really like to just be intense and aggressive and it’s just really fun.”
Shaw added her perspective on the duo’s chemistry.
“We’re both pretty fiery players. Toni is a very physical player. She’s tall, she jumps high, she hits hard and that is always a plus to have while I am short and fast and I kind of am the other side of it. So yeah, we definitely help each other out in that capacity.”
Nitro Excited to Experience New York City
For Toni, this is a special opportunity to see New York City for the first time.
Her dad and aunt will be attending her matches in Central Park, who she called two of her biggest supporters and she’s looking forward to catching up with her best friend.
“My best friend from college who I played indoor volleyball with at LSU, she lives in New York and works for NIKE and so I’ll get to see her, which I’m really excited about and she’s hopefully going to show me around and take me around the city.”
Molly is equally excited to return to New York City for the first time in eight years. In 2018, the AVP held the AVP Gold Series New York City open on Gansevoort Peninsula which Molly participated in.
“I have not been in New York since 2018. That was the last time that the AVP had a stop in NY…So, I’m looking forward to just coming to New York. I think the vibes right now are at the highest because the Knicks just won and I’m just excited to experience New York and additionally, Central Park is iconic.”
Toni added a bit of her plans to see the historic landmarks that New York City has to offer.
“I’d love to see the Statue of Liberty, Times Square and then obviously playing in Central Park like that just seems so epic and cool and just something that I’ll remember forever so I’m really excited to be a part of this event and I just know it’s going to be really a lot of fun.”
How to Watch the New York Nitro at Home
All four of the Nitro’s matches will be broadcasted at different times by either CBS Sports Network, the CW Network or YouTube.
Molly Shaw and Toni Rodriguez’s first match against the Austin Aces will be televised on the CW Network at 3 p.m. on Saturday July 18. Chaim Schalk and James Shaw’s first match against the Austin Aces will be broadcast on YouTube at 4 p.m. on Saturday.
The Nitro’s women’s duo closes out their AVP season against San Diego Smash on Sunday July 19 at 3 p.m. on CBS Sports Network and the men follow them up at 4 p.m. again on CBS Sports.
Toni, Molly, James and Chaim are heading into the AVP’s Week 6 event in Central Park with high hopes, looking to close out their season on a high note on home turf.
Molly Shaw is a little extra motivated to play in her first event in New York City since 2018.
“When we got this league stop, I was over the moon, I was praying and hoping for it because I watched everyone play last year and I was so bitter, but I’m just excited to come and enjoy New York and experience that with my husband and teammates. It’ll be just iconic.”
