LOCALS PULL OFF HUGE COMEBACK AFTER HOLDREN IS HONORED: Just a few weeks after coming back from a 6-0 deficit in the third game of an early round match against Switzerland on the distant Olympic court at Chaoyang Park in Beijing, Todd Rogers mounted an even greater comeback in his own backyard.
Rogers and Phil Dalhausser trailed 14-9 in the championship match of the AVP Crocs Cup Santa Barbara Shootout Sunday, and were about to endure only their second loss in 33 AVP matches in front of an overflowing crowd on the shallow, dusty sand of West Beach.
No. 6 John Hyden and Brad Keenan were going to send local fans home on a sour note, but learned a valuable lesson.
Never doubt an Olympic gold-medalist.
Rogers and Dalhausser rattled off five straight points and went back-and-forth down the stretch to pull of an unbelievable comeback and win the event 16-21, 21-19, 20-18.
On the women’s side, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh were upset by Jen Boss-April Ross in the semifinals, and Annett Davis-Jenny Johnson-Jordan took down Boss and Ross in the final 21-16, 24-22.
“It’s extremely rare,” said Rogers of he and Dalhausser’s comeback. “I’m sure it’s happened before in some way, shape or form but I couldn’t tell you when. Certainly none that I’ve been involved with.”
Just before the made-for-TV match began, Rogers’ former teammate at San Marcos High and on the beach, Dax Holdren, was on the stage being honored by fellow players, family, friends and even mayor Marty Blum. On Saturday, the 36-year-old Holdren announced that he will retire from competition after this season.
Holdren and partner Billy Strickland had been eliminated in the contender’s bracket final earlier in the morning, losing a tough one to Nick Lucena and Sean Scott 21-19, 15-21, 17-15.
Rogers took the mic on stage and spoke of his friend, whom he said he has known for about 27 years. It wasn’t Holdren’s 14 career titles or 2004 trip to the Olympics that Rogers focused on.
“He’s a great volleyball player,” he said. “But he loves his wife, loves his kids and that, to me, is the most impressive thing about him.”
Holdren thanked his family, friends and former partners and held back tears while he spoke, saying “I didn’t think it was going to be so hard” before taking a final bow to the hometown fans.
Like Holdren, Rogers didn’t think it was going to be so hard either.
The championship match, that is.
After the comeback Beijing, a relieved Rogers had pointed to the finals of the 2001 Hermosa Beach Open as his greatest comeback. There, he and Holdren climbed out of a 13-7 hole to take out Dain Blanton and Eric Fonoimoana in the title match.
Sunday’s was better, hands down.
As was the case in the third game of the gold-medal match in Beijing, Dalhausser’s jaw-dropping blocks stole the show in the final points.
After Rogers killed one down the line to cut the deficit to 14-10, the 6-foot-9 “Thin Beast” stuffed two in a row straight down. He won a joust with Keenan to tie things up at 14-14, and killed one a few points later to go up 19-18.
At that point, Rogers dug a torpedoed ball hit by Hyden, and it sailed high and away, well behind the back line. Dalhausser needed every inch of his lanky body to stretch out and save it, and Rogers wisely bumped it high over the net to give his partner time to get back up to the net and block.
“It was to give him time and make sure they couldn’t go over on two uncontested,” said Rogers.
Sure enough, Dalhausser ran back up to the net and stuffed one more as the crowd went wild.
You couldn’t have scripted a better final.
“This is obviously very special to me to do this in front of so many friends and family here where I was born and raised,” said Rogers.
He even snuck in a little local’s request as he stood on the podium with the $20,000 winner’s check, recommending that next time the event be held on East Beach rather than West Beach.
Unlike the surface west of Stearns Wharf, East Beach’s sand courts are deep.
Just like he and Holdren’s roots in Santa Barbara.
