April Ross is an intriguing player.
She began in indoor volleyball (we’re only now getting to the point where competitive amateur beach volleyball is a thing that exists), in the cradle of volleyball itself — Southern California. She’s one of the most storied players in USC Trojans’ history. She was by far the team’s leading scorer all four years she played with the women of Troy, leading the team in kills, kills per game, and total points all four years. As she played her first two years before the NCAA introduced the libero to college volleyball, she was also the team’s leader in digs those two seasons. That kind of two-way talent certainly foreshadowed a career in the beach game.
Ross started every match of her college career, and played in all but three games — the final three of the 2001 season. It’s quite possible that only the severe ankle sprain she sustained in the regional finals against Arizona kept her Trojans from advancing further, as the Wildcats won that match 3-2. The following year, it was Ross’ Trojans who eliminated Logan Tom‘s Stanford Cardinal to win the national championship (and end Tom’s collegiate career). Ross had one more year of college eligibility, and in an already dominant and historic career, Ross got the storybook ending that she had denied Tom. The Trojans won their second straight national title by beating Florida (25-30, 30-27, 30-19, 30-26). The first game of this match was only the second they had dropped in the entire tournament.
You’d need a dump truck to pick up all the NCAA accolades Ross was given in her college career. Pac-10 Player of the Year, NCAA All-Tournament, Academic All-American, you name it, she won it. After graduation, she played professional indoor for three seasons with a team in Puerto Rico. But while professional indoor was a living, it seems it wasn’t a life, as Ross departed the indoor game for the glitzy, showy beach scene. She graduated from USC in 2005 with a degree in international marketing.
Most people would probably guess she’s been with fellow Trojan Jen Kessy (and it will soon become clear why I didn’t profile them together…perhaps you already know) her entire beach career, but her first partner was actually old college teammate Keao Burdine. The two played 13 AVP tournaments together in the summer of 2006, with their best result being two ninth places. The partnership with Kessy began the following summer. In 2007, Kessy and Ross played 16 AVP tournaments, with two silver medals and four bronzes to show for themselves. They played 8 FIVB tournaments as well, and served notice in Stavanger, Norway by coming all the way from the qualifiers (where they beat Holly McPeak and a certain young lady named Logan Tom) to win the whole tournament. That generally doesn’t happen. They came close to another win, this time carrying the #4 seed, at the St. Petersburg Open, where they lost the gold medal final to Larissa & Juliana.
Most top teams will concentrate heavily on the FIVB tour once they’ve ‘arrived.’ And it makes sense — there’s more money to be won there than in national circuits. But Ross and Kessy played another 12 AVP tournaments in 2009 and 6 in 2010, winning 8 of the 18, before deciding to concentrate on the FIVB. Which is to say they split their attention, and padded their frequent flyer balances, as they also played 12 FIVB tournaments in ’09 and 15 in ’10, winning a very respectable 5 of those 27 tour stops (to go with 9 other medals). They have never been a serious threat for the season points title, peaking at 4th in those standings in 2008 and falling each subsequent year (till this year…with one tournament to go, they’ll finish somewhere between 4th and 7th this year, which is not bad considering they do not have a tournament win this season). But they’ve been consistent and successful.
Their biggest success was probably the London Olympics earlier this year. Their come-from-behind three-set thriller over Larissa & Juliana set up the much-ballyhooed all-American final in women’s beach volleyball. You don’t need me to tell you that Ross and Kessy came up short, but Olympic silver is a fine reward for their years of consistent performance — particularly when it came against the greatest beach volleyball tandem certainly in Olympic history, if not all-time.
And the future beckons. When I called Ross an ‘intriguing player’ at the outset, I was mainly thinking of where her future career will take her. The big hot button topic is that Ross will be Kerri Walsh Jennings’ new partner come Rio 2016. They have both, independently, identified it as a possibility. We won’t know for a while, though, because while Kessy isn’t hanging around for Rio, she does want to play the FIVB circuit next season. That’s why Walsh Jennings turned first to Nicole Branagh.
A Ross/Walsh Jennings partnership is tantalizing. It solves the problem of Walsh Jennings and Branagh having similar physical skills (though in fairness, mere time would have solved that problem as well). While Branagh has played most of her career with partners shorter than her, leading to her doing more setting than hitting, Ross and Kessy are of similar physical makeup, making neither the primary setter or primary hitter. This I think would allow for a more seamless transition to a partnership such as with Walsh Jennings, as the team’s playing style would be a bit easier to figure out. But at the same time, would Ross be content to simply be the ‘new Misty’ ? I’m not sure. That’s why it’s so intriguing!
But for another year at least, we still have Ross/Kessy as a partnership, and they’ll want to go out on top, I don’t doubt. Look for big things from them in 2013.
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