USA volleyball duo still the best

LONG BEACH - The beach volleyball team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings won the Olympic gold medal at the 2012 London Olympic Games.May-Treanor is a Southern California resident who was born in Los Angeles and still resides, at least for part of the year, in Long Beach. She is a local product who graduated from Newport Harbor High School, in Newport Beach, in 1995 and Long Beach State in 1999. What makes her accomplishment with Walsh-Jennings all the more special is how the pair did it. May-Treanor and Walsh-Jennings won gold medals in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008 without ever losing a set. Their set record stood at a perfect 28-0 entering the London Olympic Games and they never had to play a third set. This Olympiad marked their first set loss to Austria in Pool C play. May-Treanor and Walsh-Jennings won the match in three sets. Their overall Olympic record from 2004 to 2012 is 21-0 and their set record is 42-1. May-Treanor and Walsh-Jennings started pool play on July 28 and defeated Australia 2-0. They followed that up with a win against the Czech Republic on July 30th 2-0 and finished pool play against Austria on August 1 with a two set to one win. On August 4, in the round of sixteen, May-Treanor and Walsh-Jennings defeated the Netherlands 2-0. The pair followed that up with a quarterfinal win over Italy 2-0 on August 5 and then defeated a team from China in two sets in the semi-final round on August 7. May-Treanor and Walsh-Jennings then defeated fellow Americans Jennifer Kessy and April Ross in two sets for the gold medal and their third gold medal in a row. With the win, May-Treanor has now officially announced her retirement from competition.

********** Published: August 16, 2012 - Volume 11 - Issue 18