Metzger wins Olympic beach volleyball debut
Advertiser News Services
KALLITHEA, Greece — Stein Metzger had several reasons to draw what he termed "extreme satisfaction" from his Olympic beach volleyball debut, not all having to do with victory.
Associated Press
Certainly, that was the best thing that happened at a venue hugging the Sardonic Gulf's coastline here yesterday afternoon. A crowd of 3,000 watched the 80-minute match.
Punahou graduate Stein Metzger has reason to cheer.
It was separated by just two points. Metzger, a Punahou graduate, and partner Dax Holdren slipped past Australia's Andrew Schacht and Joshua Slack, 22-24, 24-22,15-13.
The 12th-seeded Americans lost a 19-17 advantage in the first game, but fought off two match points in the second. They were down 21-20 when Metzger tapped a soft shot to open sand to tie it. A spike by Schacht gave the 13th-seeded Aussies another match point, but Slack slapped a serve into the net for 22-all.
Metzger sent a serve between Schacht and Slack and they almost collided as Schacht missed the bump. Metzger then drove a hard serve into Slack for a second ace to even the match.
The Americans never trailed in the decisive set, although it was tied five times. Holdren set Metzger up for one of his 14 kills to put the United States up 14-12. Schacht answered with a spike before Holdren's 27th kill ended the match.
"My partner really picked it up at the end of games," said Holdren, from Santa Barbara, Calif. "He made big plays. We didn't get here by being a big blocking team. We've got to play hard. But we can do as well as any other team here if we can get hot."
Metzger attributed the victory to spunk more than skill, a virtue he believes could carry the pair a long way.
"We have to win like that," Metzger said. "We're two small guys, so we have to claw, get digs, win rallies. That's what we did today."
With two pool matches left, it's a positive step toward reaching the 16-team elimination round. They play again tomorrow against Norway's Iver Horrem and Bjorn Maaseide, before encountering top-seeded Emanuel Rego and Ricardo Santos of Brazil on Thursday.
"We've always felt we could medal," Metzger said. "We got the silver medal in our first world championships together (last year in Brazil) and we've beaten every team here."
Ex-'Bow Berger loses opening match
Former University of Hawai'i hitter Nikolas Berger dropped his opening match in Pool C. Berger and Florian Gosch, representing Austria, fell to Spain's Javier Bosma and Pablo Herrera, 21-14, 21-13.
Berger qualified for his second Olympics with Clemens Doppler, who was forced to drop out last week because of a knee injury suffered last month.
Berger, whose serve was clocked at more than 50 mph, had eight kills in 16 attempts and nine of his team's 12 digs.
Athens2004.com and usavolleyball.com also contributed to this report.
