Mentor Becomes Partner for Lewis : Volleyball: Corona del Mar player has joined up with Randy Stoklos to form a winning team on the AVP tour.

It started back in Brian Lewis’ high school days, when he and his buddies watched in awe as Randy Stoklos and partner Sinjin Smith collected the first-place prize money at local beach volleyball tournaments.

Lewis and his Corona del Mar High buddies were regulars each summer at the Laguna Beach Open. And Lewis always went home raving about how good Stoklos was.

“I’ve always liked the way Randy played,” Lewis said. “He was an aggressive player, and he always did the things I wanted to do out there.”

After standout indoor careers at Corona del Mar and Orange Coast College, Lewis got a chance to play against Stoklos on the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals’ beach tour.

This weekend, they will be teammates at the $150,000 Miller Lite Open at Seal Beach.

Lewis and Stoklos are seeded second behind San Clemente’s Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes of Pacific Palisades in the 32-team, double-elimination tournament. They’re the only team besides Kiraly and Steffes to win a tournament in the last 12 weeks.

Stoklos joined with Lewis last May, after he dumped Smith, his partner of 11 years. After dominating the tour for more than a decade, Smith and Stoklos’ partnership deteriorated with age, injuries and frustration.

Stoklos, 33, wondered aloud how he would fare with a young, up-and-coming partner instead of Smith, who’s 36 and nearing the end of his career.

Lewis, 26, was a logical choice.

Stoklos was Lewis’ mentor in his early years on the tour, offering the younger player game strategies.

Their skills made them a perfect match. Stoklos, 6 feet 4, dominates at the net with his strong blocking and powerful hitting. Lewis, 6-1, has one of the best jump serves on the beach and is a good setter and passer.

And they were the perfect combination of youth and experience. Before Stoklos’ offer, Lewis had won only one tournament championship--the 1992 Clearwater, Fla., Open with Pat Powers. Stoklos had 114 victories entering this season.

Before Smith and Stoklos’ split, Lewis had enjoyed modest success with partner Mike Whitmarsh of Manhattan Beach. They reached the finals at Santa Cruz and Seal Beach last year, and had Kiraly and Steffes in trouble at the Clearwater finals this year.

But for Lewis, turning down Stoklos would have been like refusing to be on Michael Jordan’s team in a pickup game. Lewis never hesitated before accepting Stoklos’ offer.

“Whitmarsh and I never won together,” Lewis said. “Mike had won a tournament (with Brent Frohoff of Manhattan Beach). I won one with Powers. Randy had more than 100 victories, so it wasn’t a tough decision.”

Stoklos and Lewis made the championship match of their first tournament together, losing to Kiraly and Steffes, 15-9, at San Diego.

“We were both nervous that first tournament,” Lewis said. “I could tell he was, and I knew I was. It was a huge thing. He and Sinjin had played together for 11 years.”

A month into their partnership, Lewis and Stoklos won their first tournament. Using strong jump serves, they beat Whitmarsh and Mike Dodd, 15-2, to win the Chicago Open before a national TV audience.

“We just dominated in Chicago,” Lewis said. “That’s the best we’ve played this year.”

Not all has gone smoothly for them. Back problems sidelined Stoklos for two weeks after the Chicago tournament, leaving Lewis scrambling for a partner.

After sitting out a tournament at Ocean City, Md., Lewis played with Newport Beach’s Steve Timmons at the Manhattan Beach Open. Stoklos returned for the Cape Cod, Mass., tournament July 17, and Lewis said they plan to play the rest of the season together.

“We need to keep doing the same things we did in Chicago, serve well, side out and play like we’re capable of,” Lewis said. “For a while, we just weren’t clicking together.”

He and Stoklos are among only nine players who have won tournaments this year. Kiraly and Steffes have won 14 of 18 tournaments, 10 of the last 11 and six in a row.

“Someone’s going to break their winning streak,” Lewis said. “It’ll happen this weekend. It has to sometime.”

This season is by far Lewis’ best in his four years as a pro. He began playing on the AVP tour in 1989, during his second season at OCC. In his first tournament, he finished ninth with Sean Fallowfield of Huntington Beach.

“Sean called me on a Thursday night because his partner dumped him,” Lewis said. “The tournament was Saturday in Tucson, Ariz., and I had a match Friday night against Pierce College. I played Friday night, jumped on a plane and flew to Tucson.”

Lewis enjoyed the tournament and decided to pursue a career on the beach. After leading Orange Coast to the State title and earning MVP honors, he turned down scholarship offers to USC, Hawaii, Cal State Long Beach, San Diego State and UC Santa Barbara.

“I hardly had any good offers out of high school,” he said. “But I had a lot of them after Orange Coast.

“But I didn’t see myself advancing in the indoor game. I figured I would wind up being a back-row specialist, and I didn’t want to do that. It was hard to turn down some of the offers, but I like being my own coach, and I can do that on the beach.”

He finished his rookie season in 1990 ranked 32nd among 200 AVP players, catching the attention of several of the top players.

“He’s one of the guys who will take the sport a long way,” Stoklos said in 1991, “His day will come. He’s putting in his time.”

Lewis said putting in time can be difficult, and expensive, for young pros. The AVP tour features 22 events, some as far away as New Jersey and Florida.

While the top-rated players gobble up the sponsorship and prize money, there’s little left for rookies and other low-ranked players, who often have to cut travel expenses to keep playing each week.

Some players sleep on the beach or pack into cheap hotels. Steffes remembers sneaking sandwiches out of the VIP tent for dinner in his early years. Lewis said the early years on the tour taught him many lessons.

“It was tough,” he said. “I didn’t come out and dominate, that’s for sure. I wasn’t a physically dominating player, like a lot of others. But I learned a lot each weekend. I had a good work ethic, and it has paid off.”

In many ways. He was voted the tour’s most improved player last season. He has won more than $263,000 in four full seasons on the tour, including $76,626 this season.

He and Stoklos hope to add to their prize money this weekend. The Seal Beach winners split $30,000.

“I’m just looking forward to being home, and playing in front of friends and family,” Lewis said. “And I get to sleep in my own bed this weekend instead of a hotel room. It’s like a dream come true.”

Seal Beach Volleyball Facts

What: $150,000 Miller Lite Open men’s and women’s pro beach volleyball tournaments.

Where: North side of Seal Beach Pier.

When: Men’s competition begins at 9 a.m. today, 10 a.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. Sunday and ends about 5 p.m. each day. The women’s tournament begins at 10 a.m. Saturday, with the finals tentatively scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Sunday and the men’s finals at 2 p.m.

Who’s competing: 32 of the nation’s top men’s teams and four women’s teams. Men will play a double-elimination format, women will play round-robin.

Purse: The winning men’s team will split $30,000, and the eight-player women’s circuit is competing for points in a $325,000 purse awarded at the end of the summer.