Muno, Chow Earn Bronze in Volleyball

In the final match of the four-day USA Beach Volleyball High Performance Championships on Sunday at the Hermosa Beach Pier, Susannah Muno and London Chow were on the ropes.

The pair could have been forgiven had they given in to the obstacle they faced.

Trailing 14-11 with Florida’s Sophia Servideo and Victoria Penrod serving for match point, Muno and Chow didn’t seem to have a prayer.

“We just kept telling each other, ‘we can do this,’” Muno said later.

They did.

Muno, a Hermosa Beach resident, and Chow, a recent transfer to Redondo Union High from Palm Springs, scored five consecutive points and pulled off a stunning end to the tournament, defeating Servideo and Penrod 21-11, 9-21, 16-14 for the bronze medal in the girls under-17 gold division.

Muno and Chow were the highest finishers of South Bay teams in the tournament.

“Obviously, we wanted a better finish, but we played our hearts out and I think that’s what really matters,” Muno said. “We definitely had a lot of fun, too. A lot of girls take it really seriously, and we take it seriously, too, but we try to have fun with it. I’m OK with a bronze.”

Chow said that it would have been great to play in the finals, “but I think we did well overall.”

The Muno-Chow duo was one of two area teams to earn a spot in a semifinal. The other one was the duo of Hermosa Beach’s Skyler Morgan and Manhattan Beach’s Samantha Snyder. They advanced to the semifinals of the girls under-15 gold division, but lost in the bronze match (23-21, 20-22, 8-15) to Maxine Burke of Dana Point and Georgina Hernandez of San Juan Capistrano.

Muno and Chow got off to a hot start in the first game, but then took a hit in the second game as Servideo and Penrod found a rhythm and pounded the pair in a 12-point decision.

In the third game, Servideo and Penrod continued to dominate. They seemed to have matters well in hand before falling apart in the end.

“Staying calm and being focused and not losing it was so important in this match,” Muno said. “Not letting the match get into our heads helped, too. I’ve always had a problem with staying calm, but this time I managed to do so.”

Though they would have like to have managed their way into the finals, “I feel like I learned more in this match because we had to come back from 14-11,” Chow said. “This was a great match and great comeback.”

In another round of the girls under-17 gold division, Skylar Caputo and Lan Nguyen, both of Manhattan Beach, advanced to the quarterfinals before falling to Florida’s Servideo and Penrod, 18-21, 21-19, 15-3.

Caputo, who will be a freshman at Mira Costa this fall and Nguyen, who will be a sophomore there, played well early on, but fell apart in the final game.

Mira Costa’s Chris Orenic also played well during the tournament, but he too was a victim of a quarterfinal loss. Orenic, who will be a senior this fall at Mira Costa, and partner Austin Kingi lost to Tustin’s Chris Long and Valencia’s Eric Ensing, 21-19, 21-16, in the boys under-19 gold division.

“We got touches on everything, but we had passing mistakes and some other errors,” Orenic said. “But it was a good match and I’m glad we got to play as long as we did in the tournament.”

One of the bigger surprises of the final round occurred in the girls under-19 gold division. Former Mira Costa standout Jace Pardon and Redondo’s Tiffany Morales were stunned in the quarterfinals by the Orange County duo of Kati Duddridge and Cinnamon Sary, 21-19, 21-19.

It was a major disappointment for Pardon and Morales, who upset defending champs Justine Wong-Orantes of Cypress and Sara Hughes of Costa Mesa on Saturday.

They were considered a threat to prevent Wong-Orantes and Hughes from repeating, but then Duddridge and Sary prevailed. Pardon was stunned.

“It’s just so disappointing. Usually when we play, we’re in the mode and ready to play,” said Pardon, who will play volleyball next season at Florida State. “But by starting earlier in the day, I didn’t have my mentality set to play for some reason. But they came out and played us well. You have to give them credit. They beat us.”

There were 136 two-player teams competing in the tournament, which began Thursday, in five age divisions.