This final is just like last year’s

Phil Dalhausser was having a severe case of déjà vu Sunday in the final of the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball tour’s Manhattan Beach Open.

He took a few volleyballs off his head and others off his face as he went up for block attempts. One even sent his sunglasses flying and left a mark on his face -- which also happened last year in the same tournament final.

But what made all of that worth it was that the result also seemed familiar: Dalhausser and Todd Rogers won.

They fended off a feisty charge by the recently reunited team of Sean Scott and Dax Holdren, riding Dalhausser’s difficult jump serve in the third game for a 20-22, 21-16, 15-11 victory.

“Dax warned me,” Dalhausser said. “He said he would hit me in the face and he does it all the time in practice, but I don’t mind taking a few if it means we win.”

That they did, becoming only the third team ever to repeat at Manhattan Beach and the first since Karch Kiraly and Kent Steffes won three in a row from 1991 to ’93. It was the seventh AVP victory of the season for Rogers and Dalhausser, who three weeks ago became the first American team to win the beach volleyball world championship.

“That’s pretty huge,” Rogers said of repeating at Manhattan Beach, considered the crown jewel of the AVP Tour. “It really hasn’t sunk in yet, but two plaques on the pier -- not too many people have done that.”

Dalhausser struggled with his serve for most of the match, making eight service errors through the first two games, but he found his touch in the third -- aided by another bout of déjà vu.

With his team leading, 7-5, his jump serve hit the top of the net and dropped in for a point -- the same thing that happened on match point in the final last year. It proved an omen as Dalhausser then served an ace down the right sideline and followed with a service winner.

“I guess he likes dribblers in Manhattan Beach,” Holdren joked. “That run was the difference in the match. If it wasn’t for that, it would have been close right to the end.”

While Dalhausser was struggling, Rogers kept the team afloat. He was a digging machine, getting to balls all over the court. He finished with 24 kills and 17 digs and never got down on his partner.

“I kept telling him to go for it,” Rogers said. “He missed, I thought, a couple of serves where he didn’t go for it. I was like, ‘If you’re going to miss, you might as well go for it.’ He just got on fire and scored us a few in a row.”

For Holdren and Scott, the tournament marked a return to the AVP’s elite. Last year, they made three finals and five final fours but broke up seeking better results. They reunited three weeks ago and finished ninth and fifth before reaching the final this week.

“It’s a big weekend for us,” Scott said. “We need all the good finishes we can get.”

They knew getting through Rogers and Dalhausser, the AVP’s top team over the last two seasons, would not be easy.

“You’ve got to hand it to them,” Holdren said. “We didn’t play poorly, they just kind of took it from us. They’re the best team on tour right now, so if you’re going to lose to somebody, it might as well be them.”

peter.yoon@latimes.com