Will Montgomery enjoyed one of the best volleyball weeks of his young life.
Last Saturday, the Santa Barbara High alum won the Under-26 title at the USA Beach Volleyball High Performance Championships in Hermosa Beach, and on Sunday he captured the California Beach Volleyball Association Santa Monica Open.
An interesting sidebar to Montgomery’s winning weekend is he defeated former East Beach local Avery Drost in the final on Saturday and combined with Drost to win on Sunday.
Montgomery, who plays libero for the UC Irvine men’s team, partnered with Adam Cabbage of Redondo Beach to defeat Drost and Steven VanderWerp, 22-20, 19-20, 15-12, for the U26 title.
The reward for winning the three-day tournament is a spot on the U.S. team that will compete at a NORCECA Beach Tour event in San Diego in September. NORCECA is the federation for beach volleyball in North and Central America and the Caribbean.
Montgomery has earned spots on USA Beach Volleyball teams five times.
In other HPC results involving local players, Santa Barbara’s Aly Squires and Betsi Metter of Los Angeles finished second to Tara Roenicke and Rebecca Strehlow in the Women’s U-21 tournament; Jordan Dyer of Santa Barbara and Ian Satterfield of Manhattan Beach placed third in the Men’s U-21 event.
At the CBVA Santa Monica Open, Montgomery and Drost defeated Tim Church and Steve Keffer in the championship match.
In other beach volleyball news, former SBCC setter Ka’ahukane Leite-Ah Yo and Brock Skriloff won the Ocean Beach A Tournament, beating Brad Bishop and Mike Saipe. The winners earned a AA rating.
