Phil Dalhausser (L) and Nick Lucena celebrate a point during thire men's beach volleyball quarterfinal match against Alison Cerutti and Bruno Schmidt Oscar of Brazil at the Olympic Games Rio 2016 on Aug. 15, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena continued their impressive run of late with a 2-0 gold-medal win over the Canadian duo of Sam Pedlow and Sam Schachter at the USA-vs.-the-world-format Long Beach Presidents Cup Sunday in Long Beach, California.
The Americans jumped out to a 12-3 lead and went on to win the first set 21-18.
The Canadians pulled to within three points midway through the second set before the U.S. edged ahead, and at match point, Pedlow blocked a shot down the line to stay in it.
Pedlow’s serve sailed long, however, on the next point and the U.S. took the second set 21-15 to close out the win.
This was the 90th career win for Dalhausser and the 19th for Lucena, who went undefeated in the tournament. It’s also their second victory in a row after going undefeated in seven matches at the Gstaad Major, a five-star FIVB World Tour event, last week.
Earlier in the day, Dalhausser and Lucena faced fellow Americans Theo Brunner and Casey Patterson in the semifinals. Dalhausser and Lucena won 2-0 (21-11, 21-19). Brunner and Patterson then fell to Poland’s Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak 2-1 (20-22, 21-15, 15-13) in the bronze-medal match.
Karen Price is a reporter from Pittsburgh who has covered Olympic sports for various publications. She is a freelance contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
