Smith, Stoklos Spike Local Heroes’ Hopes

The best story lines never happened at Tuesday’s finals of the $75,000 Manhattan Beach Open volleyball tournament.

Story No. 1: The King of the World beats the King of the Beach. Two-time Olympic gold medalist Karch Kiraly, after retiring from the U.S. national volleyball team with a weekend USA Cup victory over the Soviet Union, begins his full-time pro beach career by beating Sinjin Smith, the winningest beach player in history--on the Fourth of July no less.

Sorry. Smith and Randy Stoklos devastated Kiraly and Brent Frohoff, 15-5, to take the winners bracket title and earn a place in the tournament finals.

Story No. 2: Local heroes break Manhattan Beach Open victory record. Mike Dodd and Tim Hovland, who grew up in Manhattan Beach and Playa del Rey, respectively, capture “the Wimbledon of beach volleyball” for an unprecedented sixth time, making them the top team and top individual players in the 30-year history of the event.

Nope. Not this time. Despite jumping off to a 12-7 lead in the finals, Dodd and Hovland were worn down by the tenacious defense of Smith and the vicious jump-serves of Stoklos--as well as the sweltering heat and two exhausting matches against Kiraly-Frohoff--and couldn’t hold on. Smith and Stoklos won, 15-13, beating Dodd-Hovland for the first time in the Manhattan Beach Open finals.

OK, so let’s talk about Smith and Stoklos, whose six tournament victories are the most on this year’s tour; whose 10 wins and $134,185 each in prize money were the most on last year’s tour, and whose 97 and 77 open championships are the most of all-time.

“We’ve got the monkey off our back. We finally won this one,” Stoklos said after his second Manhattan victory with Smith and third overall. It was the team’s first victory over Dodd-Hovland in the finals. (Smith-Stoklos won Manhattan in 1986 when Dodd and Hovland were committed to another pro event in New Jersey.)

Smith, however, denies a “monkey” ever existed, pointing out that the last time Dodd and Hovland won the event in 1987, Smith and Stoklos were playing in another pro tournament.

“I don’t know who created the hype, the belief that Dodd and Hovland own the Manhattan Open,” said Smith, who has won the event four times, including once with Kiraly in 1980. “We’ve done very well there. Most of the games have been decided by two points, so you can’t say they’ve dominated us.”

Still, Dodd and Hovland found a way to win in the past--a fact of which Stoklos was well aware.

“It was still going through my mind at 14-13,” Stoklos said. “But when I got that ace, I said, ‘There is a God.’ ”

The ace--a speeding jump-serve that got past Hovland and landed just inside the tape--actually came at 13-12 and brought Smith-Stoklos to game-point, 14-12. Hovland narrowed it to 14-13, ending a seven-point Smith-Stoklos run with a soft spike into the back court. But after nine consecutive sideouts, a Stoklos block was touched by both Hovland and Dodd before falling to the hot sand for the final point, giving Smith-Stoklos a 15-13 victory.

The winners attributed their success to Smith’s idea of continually jump-serving the tiring Dodd and Hovland. The jump-serve is an offensive weapon, Stoklos said, which puts the opponents immediately on the defensive by making them handle a serve that has the speed and trajectory of a spike.

Also, Smith and Stoklos used the element of surprise by occasionally spiking on the pass rather than using the second hit to set the ball for a spike. The quick attack--a Smith pass to the net that is spiked or softly tapped by Stoklos before the other team is in position--is a Smith-Stoklos trademark that accounted for three straight points, carrying the winners from a 12-10 deficit to a 13-12 lead.

“We always try to give them something different to think about,” Smith said.

Despite what he terms the “hype” of Dodd-Hovland’s dominance of the Manhattan Beach Open and Kiraly’s return to the beach game, Smith sees Tuesday’s result as just another tournament victory.

“Randy and I, I’m sure, feel the same way, that every tournament is important,” he said. “How can we think this is more important than a $100,000 tournament somewhere else? But because we’re playing in California and we’re so close to our homes and it’s (Dodd and Hovland’s) home, it’s nice to win.”

Smith, however, says there is no longer the feeling that Manhattan Beach belongs to Dodd, Hovland and the other players who train at the foot of Marine Avenue (known as “Marine Street”) and Santa Monica is the home turf of Smith, Stoklos and the players who frequent nearby State Beach.

“There wasn’t a real feeling that (the crowd) was more for them than for us,” said Smith, who attributes the end of volleyball provincialism to the formation of a professional players association made up of players from all areas. “There were some outspoken people who I felt were for Hovland and Dodd, but I think I would have noticed if they were overwhelmingly for them.”

Hovland agreed that the Manhattan crowd wasn’t all in the “Hovie-Dodd” corner, but he boldly proclaimed: “We still run the South Bay.”

“There’s definitely a feeling (of protecting your home turf),” Hovland said. “There’s a big feeling of camaraderie between the locals at Marine Street, the players at State Beach and the small contingent in Orange County.”

Losing to Kiraly-Frohoff in a hard-fought 15-10 match Tuesday morning was Dodd-Hovland’s undoing, Hovland said. They then went to the losers bracket and had to beat Steve Obradovich and Craig Moothart (15-5) and Kiraly-Frohoff again (a 17-15 marathon in the consolation finals) to earn their championship shot against Smith-Stoklos.

Kiraly--believed by some to be the world’s best beach volleyball player--is already a force on the pro tour, having won three tournaments with Frohoff this season. But Smith downplayed the significance of his 15-5 rout of Kiraly in the winners bracket final.

“For me, having Karch on the tour means one more great player out there for me to compete against,” Smith said. “For the tour, it really helps out. It creates much more interest. Media-wise, it means we’ll be taken more seriously.”