Fopma helps Ross stay on top

MANHATTAN BEACH —Technically, April Ross and Jennifer Fopma were cavorting with the enemy seconds after a Ross ace closed out the Costa Mesa residents’ victory in the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals Manhattan Beach Open on Sunday.

For as gloriously as Ross and Fopma had finished a four-tournament beach volleyball partnership with their second straight AVP tournament title, they were, when it was over, relegated to competitors, as Ross will rejoin three-time Olympic gold medalist Kerry Walsh Jennings for this week’s Federation Internationale de Volleyball World Series of Beach Volleyball in Long Beach.

Fopma was understandably giddy in the aftermath of her first Manhattan Beach crown, which made it two straight on the sport’s most hallowed American ground. But being on the opposite side of the net from Ross, who has won 10 of the last 11 AVP events (including all seven in 2014 with Walsh Jennings, who then made it eight straight to open 2015, before Walsh Jennings was sidelined by a dislocated shoulder), has become a foreboding challenge.

Ross, 33, who now has 23 AVP titles to go with 16 FIVB tournament wins and was the MVP of the AVP tour in 2013 and 2014, continues to solidify her status as the Queen of the Beach.

To illustrate the transcendence with which the 6-foot-1 Newport Harbor High graduate and former USC All-American competes, one only need consider that Fopma had won one AVP title in a decade as a pro, before collecting back-to-back championships in Seattle and Manhattan Beach alongside Ross.

“The special ingredient was April,” Fopma, 33, said. “I’m hoping that she made me a better player, so that when we’re on the opposite side of the net, I can compete at a higher level and maybe steal some points and some wins off her ... And, hopefully, she doesn’t ace me.”

Ross, who joined Walsh Jennings following the 2012 London Olympics that capped three victorious Olympiads with Misty May-Treanor, acknowledged that there is no higher level than the one at which she is playing these days. And, just as she does on the court, she made it happen with a relentless work ethic and rare athletic skill.

“I’ve worked really hard and I feel like I’ve changed a couple things in the last couple years,” Ross said. “And I kind of always thought in my head, throughout the years, that my prime would to be 32, 33, 34, just because I saw all the players before me and that was when they really got ahold of the game. I feel like I’ve had decent experience, and I went through this learning phase when I first started playing with Kerri.

“I literally had to think about what I was doing, because when I first got on the beach, I just relied a lot on athleticism. The last couple years, I’ve had to use strategy and think about what I’m doing and then do it. I have to have a purpose for what I’m doing and that’s hard, to not just fly around and hope things go [my] way. It’s like a real vision for what you are doing. I think that helps. I think I’m kind of getting ahold of it now. And, bottom line, I just try as hard as I can and I hope things go my way. I don’t know how it happens.”

It happened at Manhattan Beach in the form of six consecutive straight-set victories, capped by the top-seeded duo’s 21-15, 26-24 conquest of No. 5-seeded Nicole Branagh and Jenny Kroop.

Ross and Fopma broke a 5-5 tie in the opening set with three straight points and led by as many as seven.

There were six lead changes in the second set, before three straight stuff blocks by the 6-3 Fopma helped stave off one set point (at 20-18) and claim a 21-20 advantage. The two teams forged deadlocks at 21, 22, 23 and 24, before a Fopma kill and a Ross ace closed it out.

“I wouldn’t let myself believe we were going to win until the last ball hit the sand,” Ross said. “I know how great of a team [Branagh and Kroop] are and it was going to be a battle. It’s such a prestigious thing to get your name on the pier [plaques with the names of each tournament winner are set into the concrete surface in perpetuity] that no one is going to give up.”

Ross, who led the tournament with 16 aces, was second with a .536 hitting percentage (with 77 kills), and was fourth with 74 digs, praised Fopma, who finished second with 19 blocks, tied for fifth with a .477 hitting percentage, and also blasted 10 aces.

“I feel like she stepped up and met the challenge,” Ross said of Fopma, who will now pair with Brittany Hochevar. “I think she knows how bad I want to win and how Kerri and I did last year [winning all 156 sets in their seven AVP titles]. I didn’t expect anything less with her and I think that’s a hard situation to get into and she stepped up right away. She’s a great athlete, a great volleyball player and she has a gnarly desire to win. And I feel like I have some of those qualities too.”

Fopma, perhaps now more than ever, can appreciate the qualities that separate Ross.

“I have to give April back and I’m devastated,” Fopma said. But I’m excited for Kerri and April and their road to Rio [de Janeiro, Brazil for the 2016 Olympics]. I’m just going to take every experience and try to absorb everything [Ross and Walsh Jennings coach Marcio Sicoli] has told me and everything that April has taught me and, hopefully, I can keep winning with [Hochevar].”

Ross and Fopma eliminated No. 2-seeded Emily Day and Jennifer Kessy, 21-16, 23-21, in the semifinals earlier Sunday.