Olympic flavor in AVP event
The finals of the men’s and women’s 55th annual Manhattan Beach Open Sunday had an Olympic touch for the fourth stop of the 2014 Assn. of Volleyball Professionals tour.
The top-seeded team of Olympians April Ross of Costa Mesa and Kerri Walsh Jennings, a resident of Manhattan Beach, won their fourth consecutive AVP title on the current tour by coming back to down No. 2-seed Brooke Sweat (Costa Mesa)/Lauren Fendrick (Hermosa Beach), 19-21, 21-13, 9-0 (retired), in the women’s final at the Manhattan Beach Pier.
Ross and Walsh Jennings are 21-0 in match play on the 2014 tour.
Whitney Pavlik of Laguna Beach and teammate Heather Hughes (Redondo Beach) finished equal-third place. The duo, seeded fourth, won two matches in Winner’s Bracket play before having its title hopes end following a 21-18, 21-16 third-round loss to the No. 5-seeded team of Lane Carico (Manhattan Beach)/Kim DiCello (San Diego).
Summer Ross of Huntington Beach and Emily Day (Hermosa Beach) placed equal-third in the women’s tournament. The pair, the No. 3-seed, reached the semifinals where they were eliminated in three sets by Ross/Walsh Jennings, 24-22, 15-21, 8-15.
In the men’s final at the Manhattan Beach Pier, Olympic gold medalist Phil Dalhausser (Newbury Park) and two-time Olympian Sean Rosenthal (Redondo Beach), seeded sixth, needed two sets to get past fifth-seeded Theo Brunner (Fountain Valley) and Todd Rogers (Solvang), 21-17, 21-14.
The No. 4-seeded team of Brad Keenan (Fountain Valley High/Costa Mesa) and John Mayer (Mar Vista) finished equal-third. The pair was upended in the semifinals Sunday by Brunner/Rogers, 21-15, 21-16.
Keenan and Mayer, who previously won the AVP St. Petersburg Open title in June, rallied for a 15-21, 21-11, 15-10 quarterfinal victory over the ninth-seeded team of Billy Allen (Cheney, WA.)/Trevor Crabb (Redondo Beach) who earlier had scored a 21-18, 21-19 third-round upset of the top-seeded team of Casey Patterson (Huntington Beach)/Jake Gibb (Costa Mesa), 21-18, 21-19.
Patterson and Gibb had won the AVP Salt Lake City Open men’s tournament title the previous week.
Three tour stops remain on the 2014 AVP schedule. The next tournament is the Cincinnati Open Aug. 28-31, and the Atlantic City (N.J.) Open is Sept. 5-7. The tour ends with the AVP Championships Sept. 18-21 at the Huntington Beach Pier.