Women’s
AVP results - 2004-2008
2004
Fort Lauderdale – 1 Misty May-Treanor-Kerri Walsh
Tempe – 1 Misty-Kerri
Austin – 1 Misty-Kerri
Huntington Beach 1 Misty-Kerri
Manhattan Beach – 2 Holly McPeak-Elaine Young; Misty-Kerri (1) finished third
Hermosa Beach – 2 Holly-Elaine; Misty-Kerri (1) finished second, forfeiting the final because Misty was injured
Chicago – 2 Misty-Kerri (They had dropped to the second seed because of missed tournaments); Holly-Elaine (1) finished third
Las Vegas – 2 Misty-Kerri; Holly-Elaine (1) finished second
Santa Barbara – 2 Misty-Kerri; Holly-Elaine (1) finished second
2005
Fort Lauderdale – 1 Misty-Kerri
Tempe – 1 Misty-Kerri
Austin - 1 Misty-Kerri
Santa Barbara – 1 Misty-Kerri
San Diego – 1 Misty-Kerri
Mason – 2 Elaine Youngs-Rachel Wacholder; Misty-Kerri (1) finished second
Belmar - 1 Misty-Kerri
Hermosa - 1 Misty-Kerri
Huntington Beach – 2 Elaine-Rachel; Misty-Kerri (1) finished second
Manhattan - 1 Misty-Kerri
Boulder – 2 Elaine-Rachel; Misty-Kerri (1) finished second
Chicago - 1 Misty-Kerri
Honolulu - 1 Misty-Kerri
2006
Fort Lauderdale – 1 Misty-Kerri
Tempe – 1 Misty-Kerri
Santa Barbara – 1 Misty-Kerri
Huntington Beach - 1 Misty-Kerri
Hermosa Beach – 2 Elaine-Rachel; Misty-Kerri (1) finished second
Sacramento – 1 Misty-Kerri
Seaside Heights - 1 Misty-Kerri
Atlanta – 2 Elaine-Rachel; Misty-Kerri (1) finished second
Birmingham – 1 Misty-Kerri
Chicago - 1 Misty-Kerri
Manhattan Beach – 1 Misty-Kerri
Brooklyn - 1 Misty-Kerri
Boulder – 1 Misty-Kerri
Mason - 1 Misty-Kerri
Lake Tahoe - 1 Misty-Kerri
2007
Fort Lauderdale – 2 Nicole Branagh-Elaine Youngs; Jen Kessy-April Ross (11) finished second; Misty-Kerri (1) finished third
Dallas – 1 Misty-Kerri
Huntington Beach - 1 Misty-Kerri
Glendale - 1 Misty-Kerri
Hermosa - 1 Misty-Kerri
Louisville – 1 Misty-Kerri
Tampa – 1 Misty-Kerri
Atlanta – 1 Misty-Kerri
Charleston – 1 Misty-Kerri
Long Beach – 1 Misty-Kerri
Manhattan Beach – 1 Misty-Kerri
Boston – 2 Elaine-Nicole; Misty-Kerri (1) finished second
Brooklyn - 1 Misty-Kerri
Mason - 1 Misty-Kerri
San Francisco – 1 Misty-Kerri
2008
Miami – 1 Misty-Kerri
Dallas – 1 Misty-Kerri
Huntington Beach - 1 Misty-Kerri
Louisville – 1 Misty-Kerri
Atlanta – 1 Misty-Kerri
Hermosa - 1 Misty-Kerri
Boulder – 1 Misty-Kerri
Chicago – 1 Misty-Kerri
Brooklyn - 1 Misty-Kerri
Long Beach – 1 Misty-Kerri
Mason – 2 Elaine-Nicole; Misty-Kerri (1) second
Santa Barbara – 4 Jenny-Annett; Misty-Kerri (1) third
San Francisco – 1 Misty-Kerri
Manhattan Beach – 1 Misty-Kerri
Beach Volleyball Journal
The Fluke Factor
Beach volleyball players, administrators and enthusiasts have been debating whether holding two trials events next summer could send the wrong teams to the Olympics. The fear: A lower-ranked team that isn’t sufficiently battle-tested in international competition has a career day and earns a berth. To add some data to the argument, DiG looked at the numbers.
By Don Patterson
In our story on Olympic qualifying in DiG 3 this summer, we touched on the concern many volleyball players and fans have about the possibility that a fluke at one of the two Olympic trials tournaments that is being planned by USA Volleyball for next summer could send an ill-prepared team to the Olympics. For that to happen, a team that either has little international experience – or far less experience than established teams like defending gold medalists Misty May-Treanor/Kerri Walsh or Todd Rogers/Phil Dalhausser – would rise up against their American compatriots, turn in a career performance and get a fast pass to London.
To give you some data, DiG has compiled five years worth of results from men’s and women’s AVP events. For the women, we looked at 2004 to 2008, the heart of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh’s dominance. On the men’s side, we took results from 2006 to 2010, which were the five years Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser played together on the AVP Tour.
The proposed format for next summer’s Olympic trials is this: back-to-back tournaments, double elimination the first week with a six-team draw, single elimination the second week with a five-team draw. The team that wins the first weekend earns an Olympic berth and doesn’t participate in the following week’s tournament. The team that reaches the finals the first weekend but loses gets automatically seeded into the finals of the second weekend’s tournament, so a top team has to lose either three times – twice the first weekend, once the second weekend – or twice in the finals to not make the Olympics.
The results below include every full-field tournament from the years we looked at. We listed the site of the tournament first, then the seed number and team that won. If the first seed didn’t win, we also noted the finish of the top seed.
As you can see, no team on the women’s side came out of nowhere to win a tournament. In fact, the top two seeds won every single event for five years with one exception – when fourth-seeded Jenny Johnson Jordan and Annett Davis, who represented the U.S. at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, won in Santa Barbara at the end of the 2008 season.
On the men’s side, the wins were wider spread. Todd and Phil’s dominance didn’t completely kick in until 2008; in 2006, four different teams won tournaments, the lowest seed being Casey Jennings and Matt Fuerbringer, who were the fourth seeds when they won the Seaside Heights tournament. Jennings-Fuerbringer also won in San Francisco as the sixth seeds in 2007, tying for the second lowest seed to win an event during this five-year stretch with Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal, who were only seeded sixth for their Atlanta win in 2008 because their points were down from missing AVP tournaments while competing on the FIVB Tour.
The only real fluke in the men’s results occurred in 2009, when seventh-seeded Jeff Nygaard and John Mayer won in San Diego.
For more coverage of Olympic qualifying, check out the new issue of DiG.
Men’s AVP results - 2006-2010
2006
Fort Lauderdale – 2 Jake Gibb-Sean Rosenthal; Mike Lambert-Stein Metzger (1) finished second
Tempe – 4 Todd Rogers-Phil Dalhausser; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished second
Santa Barbara – 4 Todd-Phil; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished third
Huntington Beach – 2 Todd-Phil; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished third
Hermosa Beach – 1 Todd-Phil
Sacramento – 2 Lambert-Metzger; Todd-Phil (1) finished third
Seaside Heights - 4 Casey Jennings-Matt Fuerbringer; Rogers-Dalhausser (1) finished third
Atlanta – 2 Lambert-Metzger; Todd-Phil (1) finished fifth
Birmingham – 2 Todd-Phil; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished third
Chicago – 1 Lambert-Metzger; Todd-Phil (2) finished second
Manhattan – 2 Todd-Phil; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished second
Brooklyn – 1 Lambert-Metzger won; Todd and Phil (2) finished third
Boulder – 1 Lambert-Metzger; Todd-Phil (2) finished third
Mason – 2 Todd-Phil; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished second
Lake Tahoe – 2 Todd-Phil; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished fifth
2007
Miami – 2 Todd-Phil; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished third
Dallas – 2 Todd-Phil; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished 17th
Huntington Beach – 2 Lambert-Metzger; Todd-Phil (1) finished third
Glendale – 1 Todd-Phil
Hermosa Beach – 1 Todd-Phil
Louisville – 1 Todd-Phil
Tampa – 2 Gibb-Rosenthal; Todd-Phil (1) finished third
Atlanta – 2 Gibb-Rosenthal; Todd-Phil (1) finished third
Charleston – 4 Lambert-Metzger; Gibb-Rosenthal (1) finished fifth
Seaside Heights – 3 Lambert-Metzger, Todd-Phil (1) finished second
Long Beach – 2 Todd-Phil; Gibb-Rosenthal (1) finished second
Manhattan Beach – 3 Todd-Phil; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished fifth
Boston – 2 Todd-Phil; Lambert-Metzger (1) finished third
Brooklyn – 1 Todd-Phil
Mason – 1 Todd-Phil
San Francisco – 6 Fuerbringer-Jennings; Todd-Phil (1) finished fourth
2008
Miami – 1 Todd-Phil
Dallas – 1 Todd-Phil
Huntington Beach – 1 Todd-Phil
Atlanta – 6 Gibb-Rosenthal (Seeded lower because they had missed tournaments playing FIVB); Phil-Todd (1) finished third
Hermosa – 1 Todd-Phil
Chicago – 1 Todd-Phil
Long Beach – 3 Gibb-Rosenthal; Phil-Todd (1) finished second
Mason – 1 Todd-Phil
Santa Barbara – 1 Todd-Phil
San Francisco – 3 Gibb-Rosenthal; Todd-Phil (1) finished second
Manhattan Beach – 1 Todd-Phil
2009
Panama City – 1 Todd-Phil
Riverside – 1 Todd-Phil
San Diego – 7 John Mayer-Jeff Nygaard; Todd-Phil (1) were fifth
Houston – 1 Todd-Phil
Huntingon Beach – 1 Todd-Phil
Ocean City – 3 John Hyden-Sean Scott; Todd-Phil (1) were second
Manhattan Beach – 3 Gibb-Rosenthal; Hyden-Scott (1) were fifth
Hermosa Beach – 1 Todd-Phil
San Francisco – 1 Todd-Phil
Muskegon – 1 Todd-Phil
Chicago – 2 Hyden-Scott; Todd-Phil (1) were second
Mason – 2 Hyden-Scott; Todd-Phil (1) were second
2010
Fort Lauderdale – Not completed because of weather
Santa Barbara – 1 Todd-Phil
Huntingon Beach – 1 Todd-Phil
Belmar – 1 Todd-Phil
Hermosa Beach – 1 Todd-Phil
Long Beach – 1 Todd-Phil
Source: Beach Volleyball Database
