Kiraly, Frohoff Learning to Win When It Counts

First, Karch Kiraly and Brent Frohoff served tough. Then they served notice.

Kiraly and Frohoff used a hard serving attack to stop Mike Dodd and Tim Hovland, 11-5, in the final of the $100,000 Cuervo Gold Crown at Mission Beach Saturday. The victory was worth $50,000 for Kiraly and Frohoff and kept Hovland and Dodd from sweeping the triple crown of professional beach volleyball. Hovland and Dodd split $15,000 for second.

With the victory in the final tournament of the season, Kiraly and Frohoff gave notice to Hovland-Dodd and Singin Smith-Randy Stoklos, the two teams that have dominated men’s beach volleyball the past several years.

Kiraly and Frohoff teamed up at the beginning of the season and won their first tournament together. But Kiraly had two commitments that fell in the middle of the season, and they were not able to participate in several events.

“It was the start of something big when we came out of nowhere to win the first tournament of the season,” Kiraly said. “But I think it really hurt us to take two big breaks in the middle of the season. Next year will be different. I will be playing beach (volleyball) full time.”

And the guy Kiraly and Frohoff have to thank for that is Dodd.

Kiraly retired from the U.S. national team this year after establishing himself as the world’s best indoor player and leading the Americans to two consecutive Olympic gold medals, a world championship and a World Cup title.

So, when Kiraly started looking for a partner for the beach tour, he called on Dodd.

“He told me that Brent had been playing well during the fall,” Kiraly said. “We practiced together one day. We beat (Dodd and Hovland) at the first tournament, and that kind of hurt him, but they got us back several times during the season.”

One of those times was in Saturday’s pool play when Hovland and Dodd won, 10-4. But both sides admitted that Kiraly and Frohoff had nothing to gain by winning the pool play match. Under the tournament’s format, Kiraly and Frohoff needed to score only one point to advance to the final.

“We didn’t want to waste our energy, and we basically threw the game,” Kiraly said. “Once we scored that point, they didn’t want to work hard either.”

Kiraly said they learned their lesson at the first triple crown tournament at Clearwater, Fla., when they played hard against Hovland and Dodd in a pool play match that didn’t matter.

“We were useless for the final (round),” Kiraly said. “We learned from that tournament.”

This time, Kiraly got the only point his team needed with an ace down the middle, a sign of what was in store for the final.

The hard-serving attack kept Hovland and Dodd off balance enough to get Kiraly and Frohoff the momentum.

Dodd and Hovland took a quick 4-2 lead, but then Frohoff served an ace, and he and Kiraly went on to score the next five points to take an 8-4 lead. Hovland and Dodd could manage just one more point as Kiraly blocked Hovland to finish the game.

“They turned over some big plays,” Dodd said.

The victory was the fourth of the season for Kiraly and Frohoff but the first since they won in Santa Cruz on June 3. Of the first 10 tournaments, Kiraly-Frohoff, Dodd-Hovland and Smith-Stoklos had each won three.

“Had I not taken those breaks, who knows what would have happened?” Kiraly said.