A pair of players from the national-champion UCLA Bruins and another duo consisting of a Bruin and a Cal Poly Mustang spoiled a match-up between former Dos Pueblos High teammates in the finals of the California Beach Volleyball Association Santa Barbara Women’s Open on Saturday.
The team of Abby Van Winkle and Savvy Simo won the championship, rallying from an 8-4 deficit in the third set to beat their college teammate Zana Nuno and Chrissy Jones of Cal Poly in an exciting title match at East Beach.
Van Winkle/Simo pulled out a 21-16, 17-21, 17-15 victory for their second CBVA title in three events this summer. They were runners-up in the third tourney.
In Saturday’s Men’s Open final, rising star John Schwengel of Santa Monica and AVP player Cole Fiers of Palos Verdes won the title, beating David Vande Meer of Grand Rapids, Mich., and Cody Caldwell of Newport Beach, 21-16, 21-19.
The Santa Barbara tournaments were part of the Semana Nautica Sports Festival.
Vande Meer/Caldwell knocked out top-seeded Ric and Shane Cervantes of Santa Barbara in the quarterfinals.
In the final, they roared back from a 16-11 deficit in the second set and pulled to within one at 19-18.
Fiers got a huge side out for a two-point lead, but a serving error brought Vande Meer/Caldwell back to within one (20-19). The championship point came on a net violation against Caldwell while attempting to block a Schwengel attack.
Schwengel graduated from Santa Monica High last year. He has played in the FIVB U19 World Championships of Beach Volleyball, the Youth Olympic Games and in 12 AVP events since 2017. The lefty Fiers played indoors at Stanford.
Down 13-10 in the third set, Van Winkle and Simo went on a 7-2 run to take the title.
The key play in the third set came with Muno/Jones leading 14-13. It wasn’t a monster spike or unbelievable dig. It was a well-placed shovel shot from Van Winkle into the upper left corner of their opponents’ side.
Muno made a mad scramble to get the ball up to Jones. It was tight at the net, so Jones could only tap it over, leaving Van Winkle with an easy dig.
Simo set Van Winkle and she tipped it over the high-jumping 6-foot-2 Jones and out of the reach of a diving Muno for the tying point.
On the next play, Simo dug a big hit from Muno and scored on a deep spike to give her team its first lead of the set at 15-14.
“I wasn’t putting the ball away at the beginning, so I had to do it at some point,” said Simo, who had six kills down the stretch.
After a serving error tied the score at 15-15, Simo tooled a ball off Jones’ block for a 16-15 lead. She then finished the match with another dig of a Muno rip followed by a blistering kill.
“In other tournaments, we’ve been down a lot. Even this morning, we were down 16-20,” Simo said. “Our biggest thing is staying patient and not getting frazzled, and sticking to our game.”
Said Van Winkle: “I think coming back is just all our part. If we do our part and side out and if we can make that nice and clean, we’re going to be great.”
Van Winkle, Simo and Muno were members of UCLA’s women’s beach volleyball team that defeated USC for the NCAA title back in May in Gulf Shores, Ala. Jones helped Cal Poly advance to its first NCAA Tournament.
The Bruin players and Jones advanced to the Santa Barbara finals by beating teams with local players in the semifinals, Van Winkle/Simo knocked off Goleta’s Carly Wopat and her partner Molly Turner while Muno/Jones beat Santa Barbara’s Katie Spieler and Delaney Knudsen.
Wopat and Spieler played on DP’s 2009 CIF-SS Division 1 championship team.
“That would have been really exciting. I would have loved that,” said Wopat of the possibility of meeting Spieler in the finals.
While it didn’t happen, Wopat said she and Spieler have talked about possibly playing together in the future.
“We’ve talked about partnering up in some tournaments. Hopefully that happens at some point,”she said.
Her appearance in a tournament at East Beach on Saturday was her first in years. Before this year, she’d been playing professionally indoors all over the world.
“I had to renew by CBVA membership because I hadn’t played in one (tournament) this whole year,” she laughed. “This was so fun. It was really nice to come back home. I really haven’t played in East Beach in years.
“I love coming back here and getting to see all my friends and family. It was a really fun tournament today.”
She’s fully engaged in the beach game.
“I made the transition in January,” she said. “It takes a lot of work. People don’t understand how much work it takes and how much time it takes to really make the transition. I’ve been pushing it as fast as possible and it’s really cool to see my improvement and progress.”
She and Turner won their pool and two knock-out round matches before fall to the eventual champions.
ONE-MILE OCEAN SWIM
The winners of Saturday’s Semana Nautica one-mile ocean swim off East Beach were masters swimmer Casey Powers and Dani Castleberg, a member of the Dos Pueblos High swim team and the Santa Barbara Swim Club.
— Noozhawk Sports Editor Barry Punzal can be reached at bpunzal@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with