It’s a Day for the First-Timers

It had been a while since Albert Hannemann won a tournament on the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals tour.

Like, forever.

In his 10th AVP season and 158th pro tournament, Hannemann finally broke through, winning a scintillating final Sunday at the Hermosa Beach Open with partner Jeff Nygaard.

It took a monumental effort--Hannemann and Nygaard fought off nine match points in the third game--but in the end, they pulled off an 18-21, 29-27, 27-25 victory over top-seeded Kevin Wong and Stein Metzger, enthralling a standing-room only crowd that lined up seven or eight rows deep at the entryways to center court.

“I just got so many chills, every time we made a great play,” said Hannemann, who played at UCLA in 1988 and 1989 before transferring to Hawaii.

Nygaard, a former middle blocker at UCLA and two-time member of the U.S. Olympic indoor team, ended the match with a kill that gave the newly formed duo their first title in only their second tournament together.

“I mean, are you kidding me?” Hannemann said. “This was great.”

That Hannemann and Nygaard were in the championship match was somewhat surprising ... and perhaps a trifle lucky.

Hannemann and Nygaard were losing to Scott Ayakatubby and Brian Lewis in the semifinals when Lewis injured his right quadriceps while jumping to hit the ball.

Lewis and Ayakatubby had won the first game, 21-15, and were trailing the second, 9-7, but they had to forfeit because Lewis could not continue.

“Haley’s Comet was aligned perfectly around Jupiter and my astrological sign was saying it was going to be a good day for me,” Nygaard quipped. “I’m not going to say we weren’t lucky, but it took a lot of heart for us to win this thing.”

Lewis said it was doubtful he would play in the Santa Barbara Open, which begins Friday with qualifying rounds.

After a solid Saturday, Karch Kiraly and Brent Doble faded Sunday, losing to Hannemann and Nygaard in the winners’ semifinals and getting bounced from the double-elimination tournament by Eduardo Bacil and Frederico Souza in the consolation bracket. Kiraly and Doble tied for fifth.

“We played a little better [Saturday] than we did today, unfortunately,” Kiraly said.

Eric Fonoimoana and Dax Holdren also had a rough day, losing to Ayakatubby and Lewis in the consolation bracket. Fonoimoana and Holdren could do no wrong two weeks ago in winning the Huntington Beach Open, but they faltered at Hermosa and tied for fifth.

“We had very few blocks this week,” Fonoimoana said. “If that’s going to happen, we need to have a lot of digs and that didn’t happen.”

*

Holly McPeak and Elaine Youngs won the women’s tournament, as expected.

They’ve been together barely a month, but McPeak and Youngs dominated their second consecutive AVP event, going 5-0 and defeating Barbra Fontana and Dianne DeNecochea, 21-15, 21-14, for the championship.

Two weeks ago, McPeak and Youngs needed three games to defeat Fontana and DeNecochea for the Huntington Beach Open title. Perfection has come quickly for McPeak and Youngs, who have lost only that one game in 10 AVP matches together.

“We were disappointed with the way we played [at Huntington] a little bit,” Youngs said. “Holly and I wouldn’t be where we’re at without being perfectionists.”

McPeak and Youngs spent the last two weeks working on their serving and their approach to the net while hitting. They felt they attacked too tentatively at Huntington Beach.

Not so much Sunday.

“We were way more aggressive,” McPeak said. “I felt much more comfortable.”