Four U.S. Teams Remain in Stavanger Medal Chase

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

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (July 1, 2011) – U.S. beach partners Jen Kessy and April Ross advanced to the women’s semifinals of the FIVB Swatch ConocoPhillips Grand Slam Stavanger 2011, while three U.S. men’s beach pairs advanced to the single elimination phase following pool play on Friday.

Kessy (San Juan Capistrano, Calif.) and Ross (Costa Mesa, Calif.) reached the semifinal round with two victories on Friday. After a first-round bye, the Americans topped Czech Republic’s No. 23 seeds Kristyna Kolocova and Marketa Slukova 23-21, 21-15 in a 39-minute second-round match. Kessy and Ross turned back Italy’s No. 7 seeds Cicolari and Menegatti 21-17, 21-16 in 34 minutes for a spot in Saturday’s semifinal.

The Americans will face Netherland’s No. 6 seeds Sanne Keizer and Marleen Van Iersel during the semifinals. Keizer and Van Iersel knocked out two American teams on Friday to reach the semifinals. The bronze and gold-medal matches will also be played Saturday. The opposite semifinal match has Brazil’s top-seeds Larissa Franca and Juliana Felisberta Da Silva playing Germany’s No. 13 seeds Sara Goller and Laura Ludwig.

Despite a tough day at the beach on Thursday for the U.S. men with two teams going 1-1 and the other 0-2, all three teams bounced back Friday with wins to conclude pool play to reach the first round of Saturday’s single elimination bracket.

After splitting a pair of matches on the opening day of pool play, Todd Rogers (Santa Barbara, Calif.) and Phil Dalhausser (Ormond Beach, Calif.) bounced back to top Switzerland’s No. 15 seeds Patrick Heuscher and Jefferson Bellaguarda 17-21, 21-19, 15-9 in 51 minutes to advance to the single elimination first round as the second-place team out of Pool K. Dalhausser and Rogers will face Latvia’s No. 25 seeds Aleksandrs Samoilous and Ruslans Sorokins in the first round with the winner advancing to play Spain’s No. 6 seeds Pablo Herrera Allepuz and Adrian Gavira Gavira in the second round.

“With Phil’s ankle injury, we haven’t been able to practice since Rome, so we aren’t as crisp as we should be at this time in the season," Rogers said in an FIVB press relesae. "I was doing a little more ‘coaching’ during the match today to help us adjust but Phil is playing as hard as he can and made some great plays. We have had to make adjustments with teams serving me more, but overall we’re doing pretty well all things considered."

Nick Lucena (Santa Barbara, Calif.) and Matthew Fuerbringer (Costa Mesa, Calif.), seeded 17th in the tournament, finished Pool J on a high note with a 21-16, 13-21, 15-12 victory over Brazil’s No. 16 seeds Rhooney de Oliveira Ferramenta and Pedro Solberg Salgado in 53 minutes. The American pair finished the pool with a 2-1 record and spot into the single elimination phase of the tournament. Lucena and Fuerbringer challenges No. 15 seeds Heuscher and Bellaguarda of Switzerland in the first round with the winner advancing to the second round against Germany’s No. 5 seeds David ‘Hase’ Klemperer and Eric Koreng.

Jake Gibb (Bountiful, Utah) and Sean Rosenthal (Redondo Beach, Calif.), the 19th seeds in the tournament, blanked Canada’s No. 30 seeds Christian Redmann and Ben Saxton 21-14, 21-10 to close out Pool L with a 1-2 record and reach the first round of single elimination. With new life, Gibb and Rosenthal will face Austria’s No. 26 seeds Daniel Mullner and Alexander Horst in the first round, followed by China’s No. 8 seeds Linyin Xu and Penggen Wu should they win.

The U.S. nearly had an ‘all-American’ women’s semifinal as Misty May-Treanor (Santa Monica, Calif.) and Kerri Walsh (San Jose, Calif.) reached the third round on Friday before falling to Netherland’s Keizer and Van Iersel 18-21, 21-19, 15-11. The loss ends consecutive gold-medal match appearance for the American duo with the gold at the Beijing Grand Slam (June 6-11) and the silver at the FIVB Beach Volleyball Swatch World Championship (June 13-19). May-Treanor and Walsh reached the third round with a 21-13, 22-20 victory over Czech Republic’s No. 14 seeds Klapalova and Hajeckova in 34 minutes.

Lauren Fendrick (Carlsbad, Calif.) and Brooke Hanson (Woodland Hills, Calif.), seeded eighth in the tournament, won its first-round single elimination match with a 21-19, 21-18 victory over Germany’s No. 18 seeds Jana Kohler and Julia Sude. However, the American pair’s journey to gold ended in the second round with a narrow 21-15, 16-21, 15-12 loss to Netherland’s Keizer and Van Iersel.

Tags: April Ross, Beach, Brooke Hanson, FIVB, FIVB beach, FIVB World Tour, Jake Gibb, Jennifer Kessy, Kerri Walsh, Lauren Fendrick, Matt Fuerbringer, Misty May-Treanor, Nick Lucena, Philip Dalhausser, Sean Rosenthal, Todd Rogers