May-Treanor, Ross stay alive in Norway

April Ross and Misty May-Treanor, who both attended Newport Harbor High, have advanced to today’s semifinal matches in the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball’s Conoco/Phillips Grand Slam in Stavanger, Norway.

Top-seeded May-Treanor and partner Kerri Walsh, the defending world and Olympic champions, will play third-seeded Tian Jia and Wang Jie of China today on Vaagen Harbor. May-Treanor and Walsh defeated Tian and Wang 21-15, 21-12 last week in Paris to win the Henkel Grand Chelem. This will be the fifth meeting between the two teams. May-Treanor and Walsh lead the series 3-1.

Sara Goller and Laura Ludwig of Germany, the No. 17 seed, will play 29th-seeded Jennifer Boss and Ross in the second semifinal match.

Boss and Ross failed to advance out of the country quota playoffs last week in their FIVB debut together. Now they have a shot at winning their first FIVB medal.

They defeated 31st-seeded Canadians Dana Cooke and Annie Martin 21-13, 19-21, 17-15 Friday.

In their second match of the day, they ousted Nicole Branaugh and Elaine Youngs with a 22-20, 21-18 win.

LOCAL MEN IN MIX

The final match of the men’s competition of the ConocoPhillips Grand Slam ends Sunday, not today like the women’s competition, which puts one more day between the contenders and the $43,500 first-place prize. But the top male teams from the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals tour have remained in the hunt for the gold medal.

Costa Mesa resident Mike Lambert and Stein Metzger, who took bronze last week in Paris, will face Andrew Schacht and Josh Slack of Australia in the first round of the main draw in the men’s competition. The sixth-seeded Lambert and Metzger defeated Linyin Xu and Penggen Wu of China Friday, 21-17, 21-17.

Jake Gibb, also of Costa Mesa, and partner Sean Rosenthal will play Clemens Doppler and Peter Gartmayer of Austria in their first-round match. Second-seeded Gibb and Rosenthal couldn’t claim a bye after their loss to 15th-seeded Renato Geor and Jorge Gia of Jordan, 20-22, 18-21.

Fifth-seeded Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser earned a first-round bye and will face the winner of the match between Franco José Franco and Pedro Henrique Cunha of Brazil and David Klemperer and Eric Koreng of Germany.

The AVP tour will resume July 5-8 with the Seaside Heights Open in Seaside Heights, N.J.

SORAYA NADIA McDONALD may be reached at (714) 966-4613 or [email protected].