SoCal duo will play for the gold
Ross, Klineman in beach volleyball final
Alix Klineman dominated the net Wednesday night as she and veteran partner April Ross swept into the Olympic gold medal match for beach volleyball.
Klineman, a Mira Costa High graduate who lives in Manhattan Beach, and Ross, a Newport Harbor High graduate who resides in Costa Mesa, needed only 38 minutes to dismantle Anouk VergeDepre and Joana Heidrich of Switzerland, 21-12, 21-11, at Tokyo’s Shiokaze Park.
The Americans will face Mariafe Artacho del Solar and Taliqua Clancy of Australia, who defeated Latvia 2-0 to advance. The championship match is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. tonight (PDT).
Klineman and Ross never looked better in rolling past the Swiss. They had struggled in the quarterfinals before eliminating reigning Olympic champions Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst of Germany.
Klineman, a fourtime Stanford All-American who graduated in 2011, used her imposing
6-foot-5 height to frustrate the Swiss. She had nine kills and, more significantly, four blocks.
“Alix took over with her blocking and that was a huge key to our game plan,” Ross said. “Alix really got in their face and that affected them a lot.”
Ross, 39, had 15 kills and two aces to pace the U.S. offense. The former USC All-American has won silver and bronze medals in the past two
Olympics.
The Californians wasted little time taking control as temperatures rose to 86 degrees at the 9 a.m. start in Tokyo.
Heidrich and VergeDepre were forced to take a timeout when trailing 7-3 in the first set. It didn’t slow down Klineman, 31, and Ross who extended the lead to 10-3 after the break.
The Swiss closed to 1611 before Klineman got two blocks and Ross had two crosscourt winners to put it away.
“We were expecting a battle,” said Klineman. “They’ve been really hot
this tournament. They are a super physical and aggressive team, and we knew we had to be physical back. We wanted to impose our game on them and we did that from the start and that worked in our favor.”
Switzerland took its only lead of the match when scoring the first point of the second set. Klineman and Ross continued to pressure their opponents with the combination of net play and Ross’ hitting that worked so well in the first set.
“Everything is falling into place,” Klineman said. “It feels so magical.”