Sands of Time Shift to Success for Pair : Volleyball: Kirby and Rock have emerged as the best team on women’s tour after getting the feel of game.

The deflation of egos, sand-in-the-face-style, occurred during the summer of ’85.

Karolyn Kirby, college volleyball star and captain of the U.S. women’s national team, was taking a day off. With her was Angela Rock, a national team member and future Olympian.

When they arrived at Mission Beach, they noticed other women playing volleyball on the sand, as two-player teams, warming up for some sort of professional tournament.

The Brazilian star, Jackie Silva, was among the players, but so were virtual unknowns, players whose indoor exploits paled compared to those of Kirby and Rock.

They entered the tournament with high expectations. After all, each was a star and each was at the top of her game.

But their game, though it was the same in name, was altogether different. They had to learn that the hard way. On the beach, the sand would give way each time they tried to jump. There was so much court to cover with only two of them.

Kirby and Rock couldn’t win a game.

“It was, uno, dos, adios, “ Kirby recalled. “And we didn’t even know these people we lost to. It was embarrassing.”

Rock called it “a definite ego adjustment.”

Today, Kirby and Rock are partners again, but things have changed in the last seven years. They have become the queens of the beach. Now, they are the ones deflating egos.

Since joining forces last season, the two have dominated the game in much the same way that Sinjin Smith and Randy Stoklos did on the men’s tour a few years back. Kirby and Rock won 12 of 17 events in 1991, while posting a 98-14 record and splitting more than $135,000 in prize money.

They have four victories so far this season, tops in the Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. They will try for No. 5 today and Sunday--at 9 a.m. and 8 a.m., respectively--in the $40,000 Hermosa Beach Open at the Hermosa Pier.

However, it is Kirby who stands out as the premiere player in the WPVA. She has been voted the tour’s most valuable player for the last two years.

“I watched her go from a goofy freshman (at Utah State) to now the top player on the tour,” said Nina Matthies, 39, a former UCLA star, coach of the Pepperdine women’s team and competitor on the WPVA.

“She is talented all around, very quick, has an explosive jump. She’s a great setter, hitter and server. She’s strong in all the disciplines of volleyball.”

Kirby, who will turn 31 later this month, is atypical of WPVA players, hailing not from California but from Brookline, Mass.

And unlike many Californians, Kirby didn’t have volleyball in her blood. Her parents, two brothers and sister never played the game. She didn’t even get interested in the sport until she was in high school.

“I was swimming competitively, but I burned out on that,” she said. “I was looking at what else there was. It was either field hockey, soccer or volleyball.”

She chose volleyball, made the varsity and was spotted by a coach in New York “who invited me to join the junior Olympic program, and that set me above the rest.”

From there Kirby went to Utah State.

“She was kind of wild and crazy,” Matthies said. “She hadn’t the experience like the California kids. She basically had a lot of raw talent, and a lot of physical ability.”

Her indoor skills progressed as steadily as her outdoor skills would later.

Kirby transferred to the University of Kentucky and became a first-team All-American, leading the Wildcats to a No. 5 national ranking in 1983. She left Kentucky after 1984 and joined the national team, then quit that in 1987 to play professionally in Europe and South America.

Also in 1987, Kirby realized that she could add to the $30,000 she was making indoors by playing on the beach during the summer. She joined the WPVA tour that year.

Rock, 29, a former star at El Toro High who went on to play for the United States at the 1987 Pan Am Games and ’88 Olympics, had joined the tour in ’85.

Kirby came away empty after playing five or six matches in her first year on the tour. Rock won $450.

“I liked it, but I was really bad,” Kirby said. “It was just so hard because the ground wasn’t hard.”

It got easier and Kirby got better, sand and all.

She began attracting the attention of the tour’s big names. She won her first tournament on June 17, 1990, teamed with Patty Dodd, wife of Mike Dodd, a 12-year veteran of the men’s tour.

Two weeks later, Kirby, particularly strong on the left side, switched partners, joining Silva, the tour’s all-time money winner and a powerful right-side player.

“I could see she could be very good,” Silva recalled. “Karolyn gave me more things--power and technique, which came from her indoor game.”

Silva finished with a tour-leading 12 victories, seven of which were with Kirby as her partner. It seemed the two would be the team to beat in 1991.

But Silva’s shoulder began to hurt and, citing overwork, the result of 10-plus years of almost year-round play, she went home to rest for a few months in Brazil.

Kirby, in need of a partner, called Rock before the 1991 season.

“I asked her, ‘What do you think about playing with me a couple of times?’ ” Kirby recalled. “We won our first tournament with only two weeks’ practice.”