Living up to the hype is not always easy to do. Think about how many boring Super Bowls or NBA finals with a team only winning one game you’ve watched. We have high expectations when it comes to the “main event” of each sport, but let me tell you, the Manhattan Beach Open lived up to the hype, again, this year. My weekend started Thursday afternoonat the Plaques Ceremony on the pier for last year’s tournament winners. Jennifer Fopma and Nick Lucena got their names on the pier for the first time with partners April Ross (2nd time on the pier) and Phil Dalhausser (5th time on the pier). If you haven’t done so already, strolling down the Manhattan Beach pier and looking at the history of the sport is a must.
Coming into this event, only one team, Phil and Nick, had won the Manhattan Beach Open before, so the anticipation of someone new getting their name on the pier was exciting. On the men’s side, things seemed to go according to plan with the top 4 seeds all making it to the semi finals. The stadium court semi finals that matched up Phil and Nick against Jake Gibb and Casey Patterson seemed to be on its way to an epic battle. Long rallies, Phil digging balls, Casey at the net blocking and it was all tied up at 10 in the first set when Phil felt a little tweak in his calf. With the Olympics just around the corner Phil decided to play it safe, which was the right thing to do, and forfeit the match. With Phil and Nick out, this guaranteed someone new, Patterson or Tri Bourne, were going to get their name on the pier. On the women’s side with Summer Ross and Lane Carico matched up against Emily Day and Brittany Hochevar, there was no doubt two of these ladies were going to be immortalized on the pier for the first time as well.
Well before the Finals, Stadium Court was standing room only in anticipation of what was about to come. The weather was perfect and the crowd was fired up, which made my job easy. The build up to the Finals is always my favorite part of a tournament. Everything is focused on Stadium court, I get to turn up the music a little louder, and fans start to get up out of their seats. I literally just got Goosebumps thinking about it. You couldn’t have painted a more perfect picture on this Sunday afternoon and both the men’s and women’s finals delivered. Jake and Casey battled to a victory over John Hyden and Tri Bourne at 16-14 in the 3rd set and Brittany and Emily coming out on top with a 19-17 nail bitter in the 3rd to claim their spot on the pier.
My lasting memories of this event will be of Casey running over to the legends, The Hov (Tim Hovland), Randy Stoklos, Jim Menges and OB (Steve Obradovich) as soon as he knew he was now part of their club and Brittany telling AVP Announcer Mark Schuermann, who was asking her how she felt after winning, that she had “nothing for him” as the jubilation, exhaustion and the realization of winning overwhelmed her. Winning any tournament is special, but ask any player if they could win only ONE tournament, every single player would have the same answer, The Manhattan Beach Open.
If you’re interested in checking out some tunes I played during this event, you can check out my AVP MBO DJ Roueche Spotify playlist.
— DJ Roueche —
DJ Roueche has been controlling dance floors for over 20 years with his seamless genre-blending style. He has been the official DJ for the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour for over 13 years now.
JRo is also the contributing music editor to Volleyball magazine and President of VALA Entertainment. He received the AVP Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 and is a voting member of the USAV All Time Great Beach Volleyball Player Committee.
You can also listen to Jeremy on his weekly volley podcast and live radio show, The Net Live.