A-Team digs deep for title
Ross and Mira Costa grad Klineman win Manhattan Beach Open championship.
Alix Klineman remembers watching the Manhattan Beach Open every year as a kid. Now, a plaque with her name on it will be displayed forever along the Walk of Fame at the pier that stands five blocks from where she grew up.
Playing in front of her friends, family and an enthusiastic hometown crowd Sunday afternoon, the former Mira Costa High star and four-time Stanford AllAmerican dug deep with two-time Olympic medalist April Ross to outlast reigning champion Brittany Hochevar and her partner Kelly Claes 27-25, 17-21, 17-15.
“This is an incredible feeling ... I never imagined this would happen,” said the 28year-old Klineman, who led Mira Costa to three straight CIF state titles and was named the 2006 Gatorade national player of the year. “It means everything to win here and it’s the coolest trophy because it’ll be there for-
ever — long after I’m done playing.”
Hochevar and Claes were one point from victory at 1413 when Klineman stuffed Hochevar to tie it. It took 32 serves after match point was reached for the duo dubbed the “A-Team” to prevail on a serve long by Claes.
Side-out scoring once match point is reached has been a blessing and a curse for Ross and Klineman, who came within one point of victory in the Hermosa Beach Open before falling 17-15 in the third set to Summer Ross and Sarah Hughes in a one-and-a-half-hour championship match July 29.
“We’re getting used to this format ... but it’s so gnarly,” said the 36-year-old Ross, who powered USC to back-to-back NCAA indoor titles in 2002-03 and celebrated her third Manhattan Beach title, having previously won with Kerri Walsh Jennings in 2014 and Jennifer Fopma in 2015. “...Brittany and Kelly played an amazing match to the very end and they made us earn it.”
Ross dug a tipped ball and finished the first set with a kill on the fifth set point. Claes served two aces in a row for a 19-14 lead in the second set and closed it out with a spike off the line. Claes finished with 32 kills, Hochevar had 14 digs, Ross had 29 kills and 15 digs, and Klineman added 22 kills.
“We came so close in Hermosa that I told myself, ‘We’re not having the same thing happen,’ ” the younger member of the A-Team said while the theme song from the 1980s TV show blared over the loudspeaker. “I started [playing] on the beach when I was 6 so I’ve been aware of the plaques for a long time. It’s a cool concept and this has been the center of our town.”
Ross and Klineman earned their spot in the final by ousting fifth-seeded Kelley Larsen and Emily Stockman 21-18, 21-16 earlier in the day.
Perhaps the most anticipated match of the tournament was the second women’s semifinal pitting Hochevar and Claes against Betsy Flint and Emily Day, who had paired with Hochevar to win the previous two Manhattan Beach Opens. Hochevar and Claes rallied from a 13-8 deficit in the second set to prevail 2119, 21-19.
Ten minutes after capturing his seventh Manhattan Beach Open crown, Phil Dalhuasser still couldn’t put his latest win into words.
He and Nick Lucena rallied to beat Jake Gibb and Taylor Crabb 12-21, 22-20, 1513 in Sunday’s earlier men’s final to win the AVP Tour’s granddaddy event for the third time in four years. It was the pair’s third AVP title this year following victories in Austin, Texas, and New York City.
“I was very emotional afterwards because we had no business winning that match,” said Dalhausser, who won three straight Manhattan Beach Opens from 2006-08 with Todd Rogers and teamed with Sean Rosenthal to take the prize in 2014. “It feels pretty sweet. We could’ve lost in the second round to the McKibbin brothers but I guess the theme of the week has been getting down early and coming back.”
Crabb put on a defensive display in the first set — being credited with 12 digs — and finished with 27 kills and 28 digs while Gibb added 10 kills and four blocks, but it wasn’t enough to deny Dalhausser (15 kills, seven blocks, three aces) and Lucena (18 kills and 16 digs).
The biggest ovation of the day went to 2016 Hall of Fame inductee Misty May Treanor, who presented medals to youth champions in the intermission before the finals. The three-time Olympic gold medalist retired in 2012 as the winningest female in the history of beach volleyball with 112 career titles.