One ace, two aces, three aces, 4, 5 aces, six aces, seven aces — properly, no extra, however you get the drift. It was on the service line that Betsi Flint and Julia Scoles punched their ticket into the primary draw of this week’s Volleyball World Seashore Professional Tour Montreal Elite16.
Of their remaining spherical alone, towards Brazil’s Vitoria De Souza and Andressa Cavalcanti, Flint notched 4 aces and Scoles added one other three, sealing a 21-17, 21-19 win. That victory got here on the heels of an incredibly easy 21-11, 21-8 win over New Zealand’s Alice Zeimann and Olivia MacDonald, scores you don’t typically see in an Elite16, even in a qualifier.
Wednesday marked a vital qualification for Flint and Scoles, extending their good streak in qualifiers collectively as a workforce in addition to their momentum gathered from final weekend’s Problem occasion in Edmonton. They have been the highest ending American workforce in Edmonton, closing with a fifth, matching their greatest end of the season.
Montreal presents one other huge alternative, as, extremely, they discover themselves in a pool with two different American groups: Sarah Sponcil and Terese Cannon, and Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss. Rounding out Pool C is Sarah Pavan and Molly McBain, the previous Florida State standout in her rookie season on the Seashore Professional Tour. Presently, Flint and Scoles path Nuss and Kloth by 880 factors within the Olympic standings, and are 400 behind Sponcil and Cannon.
No matter what occurs in Montreal, nevertheless, Flint and Scoles assured their spot because the fourth USA workforce on this fall’s World Championships, as solely the Hamburg Elite16 stays within the World Championships qualification interval. Neither Emily Stockman and Megan Kraft, nor Savvy Simo and Toni Rodriguez may have sufficient factors to enter Hamburg.
All of that, in fact, is within the distant future. For now, Flint and Scoles have extra seaside volleyball to play in Canada, starting at 4:30 p.m. Pacific, towards Sponcil and Cannon. Thirty minutes later, Nuss and Kloth will play Pavan and McBain, who have been wild-carded into the primary draw.
Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes, in the meantime, are on an island, the one American workforce in Pool B. They’ll start their event towards Barbara and Carol, the most popular workforce on this planet who’s presently driving a three-tournament profitable streak, with back-to-back gold medals received in Challenges in Espinho and Edmonton (the opposite is the South American Continental Championships, which provide the factors equal of a Problem gold medal).
Batting leadoff on Thursday for the USA will likely be Miles Evans and Chase Budinger, who performed an outstanding two matches in Wednesday’s qualifier, beating the Netherlands’ Leon Luini and Christiaan Varenhorst (21-18, 14-21, 15-11) and Spain’s Pablo Herrera and Adrian Gavira (21-16, 21-19). They’ll play Chile’s Marco Grimalt and Esteban Grimalt at 7 a.m. Pacific and get again on the court docket at 11 towards France’s Arnaud Gauthier-Rat and Youssef Krou.
For Budinger and Evans, the qualification was vital, extra essential than the primary draw made by Scoles and Flint. After shedding two straight matches in Edmonton, Budinger and Evans, who’re presently ranked No. 28 within the Olympic race, wanted an enormous end in Montreal to maintain their World Championships hopes alive. Had they not certified, their World Championships hopes would have been dashed.
But right here they’re, greater than alive, in a pool replete with good matchups for a workforce that performed a few of its greatest volleyball on Wednesday. Such just isn’t the case for his or her countrymen and rivals, Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk, who suffered a primary spherical loss to Australians Mark Nicolaidis and Izac Carracher (26-28, 24-22, 14-16). Bourne and Schalk are in little hazard of lacking out on World Championships, however the alternative to amass factors within the lightest Elite16 of the season was an enormous miss for a workforce that has but to smell its potential.
The identical can’t be stated for Kyle Good friend and Paul Lotman, good mates and former school teammates at Lengthy Seashore State who performed as a result of, properly, why not? They, too, fell within the first spherical, to Italy’s Sam Cottafava and Paolo Nicolai (20-22, 15-21) although stable volleyball was performed. Good friend will stay within the event, nevertheless, as a commentator for Volleyball TV.
Lotman’s former associate, Miles Partain, now with Andy Benesh and coming off a gold medal on the Gstaad Elite16, will play a slapdash Dutch workforce of Matthew Immers and Yorick de Groot at 3 p.m.. The pair of Dutch defenders are solely enjoying collectively as a result of their regular companions — Steven van de Velde and Stefan Boermans, respectively — are out with accidents. It’s, suffice it to say, nearly as good of a draw as one will get in an Elite16.