Post by roofed! on Aug 12, 2007 13:25:38 GMT -5
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Boss-Ross duo happy to write their own history
The Orange County duo are leaping up the beach volleyball ranks.
MARCIA C. SMITH
Register columnist
LONG BEACH Jennifer Boss and April Ross talk about their sand partnership on the AVP Tour as if it were plucked from a novel about aligning stars, fate and destiny.
The Orange County duo, who are leaping up the beach volleyball ranks in their first season together, met for the first time in 1997 on the indoor courts at USC and were on opposite sides of the net.
It was a scrimmage permissible during the days when college teams could face elite club teams. Boss, then a USC outside hitter playing under her maiden name of Kessy, stared angrily through the nylon at Ross, then a junior at Newport Harbor High.
"She yelled at me, told me to get my hands down before the serve so that she could see," Ross recalled.
Neither knew that moment would turn out to be Chapter
1 of their story.
They crossed paths again in 1999, when Boss, a senior All-America outside hitter, was introduced to Ross, prized prospect making her Trojans recruiting visit.
"The coaches said she was a big deal," Boss recalled. "I saw her, said 'Hi,' but had so much going on that I didn't pay a lot of attention and I knew I would graduate before she ever played as a Trojan."
Ross went on to lead USC to two NCAA titles and grab All-America outside hitter and Pac-10 Player of the Year honors while Boss, five years older than Ross, had begun to get her (bare)footing on the beach.
It would take a few years of phone calls and sales pitches from both players for the Boss-Ross union to become the wild-card tandem at this weekend's AVP Manhattan Beach Open, which this duo enters at the No.
5 team in the Tour's points standings.
After respectable seasons playing with veterans Barbra Fontana and beach volleyball legend Holly McPeak, Boss sought a new partner at the end of the 2006 season.
So Boss called on 2006 AVP Rookie of the Year Ross, who had a pair of ninth-place finishes with another ex-Trojan, Keao Burdine (La Habra High), in her first year on the sand.
Ross politely declined because she had just decided to team with veteran Nancy Mason.
Then Boss went to Puerto Rico to court Ross' ex-partner Burdine, who was playing on that country's circuit and was not be available for the 2007 AVP Tour opener in April in Miami.
But just a month before the Miami Open, Mason's nagging back injury needed surgery, prompting Ross to call on Boss who still was single for the first tournament of the year.
"I was a little nervous calling her," said Ross. "I didn't know what she thought of me as a player or what her situation was, but I just threw it out there and hoped she'd say 'Yes.' "
Boss said, "Let's see," wanting to test-drive her new potential partner against top-flight competition before making a one-tournament commitment.
A week and a half before Miami, Boss and Ross met for a scrimmage, their first sharing the same side of the net, and dueled against the tour champions Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor at Emerald Bay in Laguna Beach.
"And we won!" Boss said, still stunned. "They usually never lose to anyone. Ever!"
Encouraged, the unseeded Boss-Ross team traveled to the Miami Open and climbed into the finals against another new partnership, Elaine Youngs (El Toro High) and Nicole Branagh, who won the event and the $20,000 check.
"After making the finals, in our first tournament, after only a week and a half playing together, we knew that we were meant to be a team," said Boss, 30, of San Clemente. "The stars had aligned."
Boss had to cut ties with Burdine. Ross said goodbye to a rehabbing Mason. Boss-Ross, they had become. It was only a decade in the making.
"It's kind of weird how it all unfolded," said Ross, 25, of Newport Beach. "But the way we play now and complement each other on the sand shows me that this was meant to be."
With Ross, Boss can have the beach game she always wanted. She can play the right side, go for points with her killer serve and drift back on defense, which she hadn't played much before because shorter partners made the 6-footer's presence necessary at the net.
Ross, who is 6-1, hovers around the net. "Apes" impressed Boss in her tryout with powerful spikes through Walsh's blocks and a solid block on May-Treanor's shots.
Their skills mesh well. So do their positive and encouraging personalities, which create dare-to-be-great moments during tense points on the sand and humorous fare out of off-the-court travel troubles.
Like two weeks ago when the late-night partying pair missed their connecting plane to the FIVB tournament in Austria. Then got on the wrong train to Vienna. Then got lost in Europe.
"We were so stupid," said Boss, laughing, while remembering their last misadventure. "We laugh so much every day, to the point of crying, and that keeps everything fun. We play better because of it."
After taking second in Miami, they reached at least the fourth round in Dallas, Glendale (Ariz.), Louisville (Ky.), Tampa (Fla.), Atlanta, Charleston (S.C.), made semifinals at Huntington Beach, Hermosa Beach and Long Beach and the finals again in Seaside Heights (N.J.).
No victory yet. But in this twisted story of two sands stars, there will be another chapter.
Boss-Ross duo happy to write their own history
The Orange County duo are leaping up the beach volleyball ranks.
MARCIA C. SMITH
Register columnist
LONG BEACH Jennifer Boss and April Ross talk about their sand partnership on the AVP Tour as if it were plucked from a novel about aligning stars, fate and destiny.
The Orange County duo, who are leaping up the beach volleyball ranks in their first season together, met for the first time in 1997 on the indoor courts at USC and were on opposite sides of the net.
It was a scrimmage permissible during the days when college teams could face elite club teams. Boss, then a USC outside hitter playing under her maiden name of Kessy, stared angrily through the nylon at Ross, then a junior at Newport Harbor High.
"She yelled at me, told me to get my hands down before the serve so that she could see," Ross recalled.
Neither knew that moment would turn out to be Chapter
1 of their story.
They crossed paths again in 1999, when Boss, a senior All-America outside hitter, was introduced to Ross, prized prospect making her Trojans recruiting visit.
"The coaches said she was a big deal," Boss recalled. "I saw her, said 'Hi,' but had so much going on that I didn't pay a lot of attention and I knew I would graduate before she ever played as a Trojan."
Ross went on to lead USC to two NCAA titles and grab All-America outside hitter and Pac-10 Player of the Year honors while Boss, five years older than Ross, had begun to get her (bare)footing on the beach.
It would take a few years of phone calls and sales pitches from both players for the Boss-Ross union to become the wild-card tandem at this weekend's AVP Manhattan Beach Open, which this duo enters at the No.
5 team in the Tour's points standings.
After respectable seasons playing with veterans Barbra Fontana and beach volleyball legend Holly McPeak, Boss sought a new partner at the end of the 2006 season.
So Boss called on 2006 AVP Rookie of the Year Ross, who had a pair of ninth-place finishes with another ex-Trojan, Keao Burdine (La Habra High), in her first year on the sand.
Ross politely declined because she had just decided to team with veteran Nancy Mason.
Then Boss went to Puerto Rico to court Ross' ex-partner Burdine, who was playing on that country's circuit and was not be available for the 2007 AVP Tour opener in April in Miami.
But just a month before the Miami Open, Mason's nagging back injury needed surgery, prompting Ross to call on Boss who still was single for the first tournament of the year.
"I was a little nervous calling her," said Ross. "I didn't know what she thought of me as a player or what her situation was, but I just threw it out there and hoped she'd say 'Yes.' "
Boss said, "Let's see," wanting to test-drive her new potential partner against top-flight competition before making a one-tournament commitment.
A week and a half before Miami, Boss and Ross met for a scrimmage, their first sharing the same side of the net, and dueled against the tour champions Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor at Emerald Bay in Laguna Beach.
"And we won!" Boss said, still stunned. "They usually never lose to anyone. Ever!"
Encouraged, the unseeded Boss-Ross team traveled to the Miami Open and climbed into the finals against another new partnership, Elaine Youngs (El Toro High) and Nicole Branagh, who won the event and the $20,000 check.
"After making the finals, in our first tournament, after only a week and a half playing together, we knew that we were meant to be a team," said Boss, 30, of San Clemente. "The stars had aligned."
Boss had to cut ties with Burdine. Ross said goodbye to a rehabbing Mason. Boss-Ross, they had become. It was only a decade in the making.
"It's kind of weird how it all unfolded," said Ross, 25, of Newport Beach. "But the way we play now and complement each other on the sand shows me that this was meant to be."
With Ross, Boss can have the beach game she always wanted. She can play the right side, go for points with her killer serve and drift back on defense, which she hadn't played much before because shorter partners made the 6-footer's presence necessary at the net.
Ross, who is 6-1, hovers around the net. "Apes" impressed Boss in her tryout with powerful spikes through Walsh's blocks and a solid block on May-Treanor's shots.
Their skills mesh well. So do their positive and encouraging personalities, which create dare-to-be-great moments during tense points on the sand and humorous fare out of off-the-court travel troubles.
Like two weeks ago when the late-night partying pair missed their connecting plane to the FIVB tournament in Austria. Then got on the wrong train to Vienna. Then got lost in Europe.
"We were so stupid," said Boss, laughing, while remembering their last misadventure. "We laugh so much every day, to the point of crying, and that keeps everything fun. We play better because of it."
After taking second in Miami, they reached at least the fourth round in Dallas, Glendale (Ariz.), Louisville (Ky.), Tampa (Fla.), Atlanta, Charleston (S.C.), made semifinals at Huntington Beach, Hermosa Beach and Long Beach and the finals again in Seaside Heights (N.J.).
No victory yet. But in this twisted story of two sands stars, there will be another chapter.
