Catalyzed Vol. 3

Ashley & Erik

Some connections are planned. This one required a flooded court, a failed leaf blower, and a mutual friend who couldn't quite read the room. 

Ashley had been coming to Rally for about a year before she met Erik. Two, sometimes three Courts & Coffees a week, Ranks+ league, a regular. She’d played tennis before, but pickleball at Rally gave her “the bug.” Erik had moved to Charlotte from Portland, Oregon a few months earlier, having been sold on the city by a coworker and pointed toward Rally by a contact in the pickleball world. He'd scoped out the venue once before they met and was finding his footing in the Charlotte pickleball scene. 

But on January 20, 2025, neither of them had planned to come to Rally at all. Fortunately, a fateful series of events changed that. 

The Leaf Blower Plan

Ashley was supposed to be playing at Clanton Park that morning with a couple of friends. It had just rained. They were out there with a leaf blower trying to dry off the courts.

She texted her friend Jee, a pickleball pro and court captain at Rally at the time, to see if there was any court availability as a backup plan just in case.

Meanwhile, Erik, one of Jee’s other mutual friends, had agreed to meet Jee at Rally so she could try out a new paddle he had early access to. It was raining, the demo was quick, and he'd normally have just gone home. But he'd been in Charlotte for a couple of months at that point and was still figuring out if he wanted to stay.

"I was trying to say yes to things," he said.

So he hung around. He and Jee were sitting in the first set of booths by the café when her phone rang. It was Ashley's group, reporting in from Clanton Park. They were going to try the leaf blower on the courts.

Erik had spent four years in Oregon. He knew exactly how that was going to go.

"Less than five minutes later, we get another call. Didn't work. So Jee invited them over, and that's when Ashley walked in."

The Third Location Theory

They got a court, hit around for an hour or two, and then sat and talked after. It didn't take long to find the thread. Erik had just moved from Portland, and Ashley, through her work, had spent months living there at different points.

"Most people in Charlotte have never even been to Portland," Erik said. "So, it was like, oh, you know exactly what neighborhood I'm talking about."

Somewhere in the conversation, they also landed on the fact that they were both left-handed.

Ashley thought he was a strong player. Erik thought she was interesting and, notably, cute.

When they wrapped up, Ashley threw it out to the group: does anyone want to grab a beer at Sugar Creek?

"He took me up on that one pretty quick," she said.

Sugar Creek turned into pizza. By the time they were there, Jee had somewhere else to be but wasn't quite ready to leave.

"I'm sitting there like... you can read the room a little bit, Jee," Erik said. "We're fine."

He still wasn't entirely sure Ashley was interested, even after she'd gotten him to the third location.

"She just laughed when I told her that later," he said.

The Moment It Clicked

Ashley had mentioned she was playing in the upcoming Hamilton Round Robin at Rally. She didn't think much of it. The next day, Erik showed up to watch.

"I wasn't really expecting that," she said. "That was kind of the moment where I thought, okay. This might be something."

Erik had his own recon operation running. That same day, he pulled Rosie aside, Rally's Head of Pickleball.

"I asked Rosie what she knew about Ashley," he said. "She had good things to say."

The Real Test

A few weeks in, they planned a ski trip to Snowshoe, West Virginia. It did not go as planned.

There was a blizzard. A tractor-trailer flipped on the highway. They sat at a standstill for two hours before Erik walked up to a cop to assess the situation. The verdict: they weren't getting through. They happened to be right in front of the Greenbrier, which, in the middle of nowhere West Virginia, was a lucky place to be stranded.

They pivoted, checked into the Greenbrier, and made it to Snowshoe the next day. For Erik, the whole thing was quietly clarifying.

"Things didn't go as planned at all, and there were zero issues," he said. "She just rolled with it. That tells you a lot about a person."

From Charlotte to the Coast

They made it official at the Oyster Wine & Beer Festival that February. By April, they'd met each other's parents — his in San Diego, hers in Naples, where all of them played the US Open Pickleball tournament together. By fall, they were driving cross-country for Thanksgiving, spending Christmas in California, and ringing in the New Year in New Orleans on the way back.

"We traveled so much that first year," Ashley said. "Looking back, I think we just knew pretty early on."

The Proposal

Erik had known for a while that he wanted to propose on January 20th, 2026, exactly one year to the day they met at Rally. He'd told his family in November, her parents in December. By the time they arrived at her parents' place in Florida for their anniversary, essentially everyone there knew except Ashley.

He slipped away on the morning of the 20th to get coffee and left an anniversary card on the bed. Ashley read it. She teared up. He walked back in, saw her, and decided that was the moment.

"I turned around and he was already down on one knee," she said. "I had no idea it was coming."

Partners On and Off the Court

They play in different circles now for regular games, but once a week, they drill together and go to a wine bar after. That's their standing date night.

Early on, Erik subbed into Ashley's Ranks league. Rosie made him play right-handed to give everyone else a fair shot. He made it through most of the tournament before anyone caught on.

"The serve gave it away," Ashley said. "It was pretty ugly."

Ask who's better, and Erik goes quiet. Ashley doesn't hesitate.

"He's got a point and a half on my DUPR. He just won't say it."

On What Makes Rally Different

"Pickleball is already a really social sport, no matter where you play it," Ashley said. "But Rally takes that and adds another layer. The bar, the café, Courts & Coffee, where you're rotating partners and constantly meeting new people. It just lends itself to connection in a way that feels really natural. A lot of my closest friends now are people I started playing with here at Rally."

Erik moved to Charlotte, not knowing many people. Rally gave him a way in.

"It's a fun place to hang out even when you're not playing," he said. "The indoor-outdoor setup, the coffee, the food. And then the people."

More than a year later, employees at Rally still remember the day Ashley and Erik met.

For anyone nervous about showing up solo: "Just go," Ashley said. "My very first Courts & Coffee, I came by myself and met a ton of people. There's nothing to be afraid of."

You might even meet your soulmate.

What’s Next

Ashley and Erik are getting married this June in Sea Ranch, California — a cliffside ceremony on the Mendocino coast, just 18 of their closest family members. Wine country after. Italy eventually for the honeymoon.

And yes, they're still playing pickleball.