Lambert-Metzger get all the way back
Mike Lambert and Stein Metzger figured they needed to dig deep.
Their position as one of the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour’s top teams had come into question after a string of surprising losses, and doubt was beginning to creep into their minds.
Sunday, order was restored when Lambert and Metzger completed their comeback from volleyball oblivion by defeating Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal, 21-17, 21-18, in the final of the Huntington Beach Open.
In addition to reclaiming their place among the beach volleyball elite, they denied Gibb and Rosenthal a $100,000 bonus they would have earned had they won. Lambert and Metzger made history by winning the tournament after losing their first-round match.
Although official AVP match-by-match statistics have only been kept since 2002, they are the first team believed to have accomplished that feat, according to several longtime observers.
“This tournament was gut-check time,” Lambert said. “To be able to pull this off, it was a pretty good gut check.”
Their first-round loss Friday came against Vincent Robbins and Jason Wright, a qualifying team that Lambert said he had never seen before. That loss -- their fourth consecutive -- raised many eyebrows, especially because Lambert and Metzger had lost two consecutive matches a week before in Dallas and were eliminated with a career-worst 17th-place finish.
The losing streak had the teammates thinking about everything except winning.
“You’re thinking a lot of things,” Metzger said. “But you’re not thinking about making the final.”
But they won seven consecutive matches after Friday’s loss, made the final and took home the trophy -- their sixth title together. It took its toll. Metzger said he had to drive home with his car in cruise control Saturday night because his leg was cramping.
Lambert said he needed a long massage Sunday morning before the final because his body was so sore. Still, the nine-match weekend was worth the price, Metzger said.
“We were thinking Friday that we still believe that we can win tournaments out here, but we had some things to work on and it wouldn’t happen overnight,” he said. “Then it almost kind of did.”
It didn’t hurt that Gibb and Rosenthal were playing with the added pressure of possibly winning a $100,000 bonus presented to the top team in the points standings through the first three tournaments, known as the Cuervo Gold Triple Crown. In the semifinals, Gibb and Rosenthal knocked off top-seeded Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers and needed to win the final to take home the bonus.
Instead, Dalhausser and Rogers, winners at the first two tournaments this year, won the bonus. Gibb and Rosenthal left without talking to reporters, but Dalhausser said he empathized.
“I know exactly how Jake and Rosie feel because that’s how I felt after we lost to them,” said Dalhausser, speaking of his team’s semifinal loss to Gibb and Rosenthal. “But it was nerve-racking. I’m not a nervous person and I played nervous the whole match.”
Lambert said the pressure on Gibb and Rosenthal helped his team in the final.
“That’s a lot of zeros,” he said. “That many zeros will get you tight, you know.”
Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh didn’t have to worry about those zeros in the women’s final against Elaine Youngs and Nicole Branagh because Youngs and Branagh had clinched the bonus just by making it to the final.
But that only served as motivation to May-Treanor and Walsh, who finished second in the three-tournament series but routed Youngs and Branagh, 21-13, 21-13, Sunday in the women’s final.
“It was kind of a blow to us that we had no chance at winning that bonus, so we really wanted to win this match,” May-Treanor said.
They trailed, 10-8, in the first game before they found the groove that has made them the top team in the world and dominated the rest of the match.
“We were in neutral and we found drive,” May-Treanor said.
It was the 40th AVP victory for the team and the milestone occurred at an appropriate spot: Huntington Beach was the site of their first tournament together.
The dominant performance at Huntington Beach was a far cry from three weeks ago, when May-Treanor and Walsh finished third at the season-opener in Miami.
“I don’t think Miami was necessarily a bad thing,” May-Treanor said. “We found out what we needed to get done and now we’re putting it to use. Obviously we weren’t happy with our finish there, but now we’re playing really good volleyball. Sometimes it takes those little trips to get you back up to that level.”