It Turns Out to Be Good Day at Beach for Volleyball Stars Dodd, Hovland

The U.S. championship of professional beach volleyball was held Sunday at the Manhattan Beach pier, and things couldn’t have been much more predictable.

The sun was shining and the air was hot, which helped make for a large crowd in various stages of dress and sobriety. And the competition went much as one would expect:

In the final, the team of Sinjin Smith and Randy Stoklos went against Mike Dodd and Tim Hovland. As expected.

Each of these two-man teams make up the top four beach volleyball players in the world. And in the final, Dodd and Hovland prevailed, 15-10.

Dodd and Hovland got a two-hour rest while Smith and Stoklos had to play back through a consolation bracket, having lost an earlier match. The two-hour rest helped, as Dodd and Hovland opened up a 7-0 lead and looked as though they would breeze to an easy $9,400 first prize and a $5,000 share of the Pro Beach Volleyball Series Grand Prix bonus money.

Smith and Stoklos, however, battled back to within three, 13-10, before Dodd and Hovland held on and won.

“We knew it was possible for them to come back,” Dodd said. “The way Sinjin can dig and with Stoklos’ blocking we knew we would have to hang tough.”