Wong-Orantes, Hughes Finish 9th at Worlds

Bill Kauffman
Associate Director, Communications
Phone: 719-228-6800
E-Mail: bill.kauffman@usav.org

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (June 25, 2011) – The U.S. youth beach pair of Sara Hughes and Justine Wong-Orantes had their dream of reaching the 10th Annual FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch Youth (Under-19) World Championships podium cut short Saturday in the first round in Umag, Croatia.

Hughes (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and Wong-Orantes (Cypress, Calif.), seeded second in the tournament, lost to Austria’s No. 8 seeds of Katharina Schützenhöfer and Lena Plesiutschnig 17-21, 21-15, 15-9 Saturday morning. The U.S. pair finished the tournament in a tie for ninth place.

"It's been a great experience meeting all of the other athletes," Wong-Orantes said. "The level is much higher than what we see at home. We're used to winning, but now we realize there are much better teams out there and we need to raise our level."

The American duo had advanced to the first round after finishing second in Pool B’s four-team round-robin portion of the event on Thursday and Friday. They won their first two pool matches before falling to Spain’s Paula Soria Gutierrez and Maria del Carmen Martinez Ferrer on Friday.

"Overall, we are happy with how our young teams played, but certainly not satisfied with our results," USA Volleyball Director of International and High Performance Beach Programs Ali Lamberson said. "We have a lot more work to do in order to get back on the podium."

After defeating the Americans, Schützenhöfer and Plesiutschnig won their second round match and their semifinal match, both in two sets, to advance to Sunday's gold-medal match.

Hughes and Wong-Orantes were trying to duplicate the feat of Summer Ross and Jane Croson, who captured the 2010 FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch Youth (U-19) World Championships.

Three other U.S. beach teams were competing in the FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch Youth World Championships. The men’s pairs of Skyler McCoy (Lakewood, Calif.)/Patrick Carr (Sterling, Va.) and Nick Porterfield (Los Angeles)/Bennett Bird (San Diego) were unable to advance out of the main draw round robin and finished in a tie for 19th place. Mikayla Tucker (Placerville, Calif.) and Alexa Strange (San Clemente, Calif.) reached the second round of women’s qualification bracket before falling to a pair from Poland.

A total of 73 teams – 38 men and 35 women – from 29 countries were narrowed down to the top 24 in each gender on Wednesday, making up six four-team pools for round robin play on Thursday and Friday. The top two teams in each pool and the best four third-place teams advanced to the single elimination bracket.

Additional information on the 2011 FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch Youth World Championships is available at fivb.org.

Tags: Beach, Beach Volleyball, FIVB, FIVB beach, FIVB World Championship, SWATCH FIVB Youth World Championships, U.S. Beach Youth National Team