Katie Spieler and her cousin Torrey Van Winden are back to defend the title in the CBVA Santa Barbara Women’s Open.
The Semana Nautica summer sports festival reaches its climax this weekend with a pair of ocean swims, men’s and women’s open beach volleyball tournaments, the Krazy Kardboard Kayak race, the masters swim meet and the Sea Shell and Sabot Regatta.
Saturday’s action starts at 9 a.m. in front of the Cabrillo Bath House with the Mullen and Henzell 1-mile ocean swim. On the sand, the California Beach Volleyball Association Santa Barbara Men’s Open begins pool play in the morning.
The Reg Richardson Masters Swim Meet finishes up at Los Banos del Mar Pool around 5 p.m. At 1 p.m. at West Beach, contestants will be constructing kayaks out of cardboard and then racing them as long as they can.
Sunday’s schedule starts with the 3-mile ocean swim at 9 a.m. The Santa Barbara Women’s Open volleyball tournament starts at the same time in front of the Bath House. The children’s regatta is 1 p.m. at West Beach.
The team of Curt Toppel-Mark Burik is the top seed for the Santa Barbara Men’s Open volleyball tournament. The 6-9 Toppel and 6-3 Burik have experience playing play on professional tours. They played together in a NORCECA event in the Cayman Islands and finished fourth. Burik is ranked 42nd in the USA Beach Rankings and Toppel is 101st.
The No. 2 seeded team is Parker Kalmbach and Hawk Hatcher. They won the CBVA Hermosa Beach Open in May. The 6-7 Kalmbach just completed his college indoor career at Pepperdine. Hatcher is the No. 66-ranked player on the USA Beach list.
The men’s tournament will feature a reunion of UCSB players. Former Gauchos Andy McGuire and Cullen Irons are joining forces as are Jeff Menzel and Jared Godinez. UCSB alum Jake Rosener is playing the SBCC men’s coach and former Harvard player Matt Jones.
Other local teams include Dos Pueblos girls coach Dillan Bennett playing with Ohio State’s Mitch Beal, the son of Doug Beal, the coach of the 1984 Olympics gold-medal U.S. Men’s Indoor National team; former DP standout Jordon Dyer is combining with Connor Olbright, the former setter at Long Beach State. Other locals are Mike Stewart-Ric Cervantes, Justin Hertlein-Nic Barron, Kyle Skinner-Gage Worsley and Will Harris-Alex McGeever.
DP alum Katie Spieler, a beach volleyball standout for Hawaii, and her 6-4 cousin Torrey Van Winden are back to defend their title in Sunday’s women’s open. Spieler-Van Winden finished third last week at the Huntington Beach “AAA” and took a second in Santa Cruz back in May. In June, Spieler won a Santa Cruz “AAA” event with Delaney Knudsen.
The women’s top-seeded team is Kathryn Plummer and Corinne Quiggle. Plummer, a 6-6 setter, helped Aliso Niguel High win the CIF 1A Division title last fall. On the beach this season, she’s won a tournament in Santa Monica and took second at Doheny. Quiggle has five top-five finishes in CBVA tournaments.
Sara Fredrickson and Mackenzie Brook are No. 2 seeds. Frederickson has a pair of fifth-place finishes in CBVA events in Santa Monica and Manhattan Beach. Brook took fifth at a Will Rogers State Beach “AAA” tourney.
Local teams in the tourney include Carly Wopat-Maddy Leiphardt, Sam Maas-Cara Spieler, K.C. Collins-Lisa Gera and Patti Cook-Dana Kabashima.
In both tournaments, the format will be pool play followed by single-elimination playoffs. The finals should be around 4 p.m.
