player in the world, had always thought he would finish his career with Lucena.
Before saying yes, though, Dalhausser sat down with Lucena and pressed him on whether he really wanted to make this move. For the 35-year-old Dalhausser, it made strategic sense to switch; his point totals with Rosenthal had plummeted as he recovered from the injury. Teaming with Lucena would make it easier for him to earn the second Olympic spot, mostly because it would eliminate one team in front of him: Lucena-Brunner. But Dalhausser reminded Lucena that that were clear downsides on Lucena’s end.
“I thought it was a big risk for him,” Dalhausser says. “I’m com-
ing off an injury and he was in the second spot for the Olympics.” Once Lucena assured him that he had thought it through and wanted to go for it, Dalhausser said: “Let’s do it.” That left Brunner, a 6-7 blocker, as the odd man out. He picked up Rosenthal as a partner, but his odds of going to the Olympics next year went from very good to very, very long, and he wasn’t happy. “Nick did it to me twice,” said Brunner, refer- ring to Lucena’s decision to split their partnership once previously, in 2013. “I didn’t like the way it went down both times. We’re not going to be best friends after this.”
Lucena, who will be 36 in September, said: “Theo texted me [saying] that I’ve done it to him twice, but both times were a business decision and both times I felt like I made the right decision. Playing with Phil, I put myself in a position to win every time, and if by the end of the season we’re ready to make a run, it’s go- ing to be exciting.”
more exciting team. I saw fire from Phil today that I haven’t seen for a long, long time – maybe ever. Nick brings it out in him.”
STILL GREAT WITH ONE HAND A torn labrum in her hitting shoulder didn’t prevent Walsh Jen-
UPHILL BATTLE: Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross played their last FIVB Grand Slam of the year in Poland in August before shutting it down for the season. (Photo: FIVB)
Early indications are that this decision was indeed the right one for Lucena and Dalhausser. As of mid-September, they were off to a great start with two second-place finishes and a fifth in three FIVB events. That earned them 1,650 team points and put them right back in the race with Hyden-Bourne, although the late start means Dalhausser-Lucena have very little margin for low finishes. Olym- pic qualifying rules require that each team play a minimum of 12 tournaments; short of an injury, they’ll make it to 12, but not many more. Hyden-Bourne have an advantage in that they’ll have more total finishes from which to select their 12 best. Their point total at VolleyballUSA’s deadline was 3,360 from nine tournaments, which means they had averaged 373 points per event; Dalhausser-Lucena, in their small three-tournament sample, were averaging 550. Numbers aside, Dalhausser was clearly playing more energetic volleyball with Lucena than he was with Rosenthal. Asked if he was having more fun since the switch, Dalhausser said: “Oh, yeah. Nick has a way of pulling it out of me.” That much was apparent to beach Hall of Famer Sinjin Smith, who watched their run to the silver medal in Long Beach. “It’s fun to watch Phil play with Nick,” he said. “It makes for a
nings from making it to the finals of the FIVB World Series of Beach Volleyball in Long Beach. Serving underhand, hitting left-handed and getting a humongous assist from partner April Ross, who played some of her best and most aggressive volleyball ever, Walsh Jennings wowed everybody by reaching the finals. That far exceeded both of their expectations. In fact, Ross was so sure she and Walsh Jennings wouldn’t make it to the Aug. 23 finals at Long Beach that she booked a flight for the next week’s tournament in Poland for Saturday, Aug. 22. “I’ve never done that in my entire career,” she said. “But in our current state, I didn’t know what our potential would be.” Turns out, their potential was just fine, and a huge part of that was Ross’ elevated play. Knowing she’d have to step up, Ross passed a huge chunk of the court, ripped her jump serve with more authority than ever and terminated a ton of on-two balls off Walsh Jen- nings’ passes. She also flour- ished while Walsh Jennings was out of action, winning two AVP tournaments in August with Jennifer Fopma (Seattle and Manhattan Beach, Califor- nia) and another in September with Lauren Fendrick (Hun- tington Beach, California). (Fendrick and her regular part- ner, Brooke Sweat, were first in women’s Olympic points as of mid-September, but Sweat, like Walsh Jennings, ended her season early with a shoulder surgery.) That made Ross the first women’s beach player in history to win tournaments in a
single season with three different partners.
Despite all the success, this summer was a mental test for Ross that wasn’t entirely without angst.
“When Kerri first got hurt, I got really stressed out,” she says. “It was a lot of, ‘Gosh, if Kerri were healthy we’d be kicking butt and winning tournaments.’ And then I started thinking, ‘Are Kerri and I going to be able to make it? Am I good enough to help Kerri with her shoulder as is?’ I was just second-guessing myself. And then I finally snapped myself out of it and thought, ‘You know what … prove to yourself that you’re good enough.’” Walsh Jennings is confident now that the shoulder surgery is behind her that there’s plenty of time to rehab and resume her Rio qualifying run. Tough as it was to navigate the summer with a serious shoulder injury, she says there were long-term benefits. “My biggest positive from all this as a team is the improvement of
our team defense,” she says. “We haven’t had [great team defense] since we started. We’ve had it against the teams we should have had it against, but we haven’t had it against the top teams. April has taken advantage of this situation, and her defense has improved a ton. We have totally turned a corner, and that’s why we’re going to win a gold medal.”
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