HERMOSA BEACH, California — For 5 minutes or so, Ben O’Dea and Brad Fuller spoke on the gradual, agonizing rise of Patrikas Stankevicius and Audrius Knasas.
Lithuania’s prime seashore volleyball workforce was clearly proficient, having received Futures occasions in Slovenia, Poland and Hungary. They’d certified for a Problem in Morocco and an Elite16 in Paris. However one thing was nonetheless lacking, a component that put a ceiling on their confidence, which ought to, given their degree of play, be unquestioned.
The Huge Win.
“You see that so typically with World Tour groups at that Futures or Problem degree the place you get one good outcome, and swiftly you’ve got that confidence which you could compete with these guys, after which that turns into your normal,” mentioned O’Dea, the 32-year-old who, alongside his brother, Sam, has lengthy been the face of the New Zealand program. “So many groups are chasing that one outcome and you then get that confidence, you begin coaching with the higher groups within the tournaments, you begin creeping up within the qualifiers, you get a most important draw or two.”
There was a shared look of recognition as the identical thought dawned Fuller and O’Dea: Although they had been talking about Lithuania, who in 2024 is now firmly within the mixture of most important draw Problem degree groups and have landed a number of signature wins, they might have simply as simply been talking about themselves.
Oh.
“I really feel like that’s been us the final couple of tournaments,” Fuller mentioned, laughing. “We preserve dropping 16-14 to prime 20, prime 30 groups. That’s what we’ve been observing from different groups, we’re on that precipice of a breakthrough.”
It’s an agonizing place to be, that precipice. The medals are shut sufficient to scent, but the outcomes aren’t but there, the podiums remaining elusive. In 4 tournaments this season, they’ve made only one most important draw, with a excessive end of nineteenth on the Saquarema Problem in April. However study the finishes additional, match by match, and what you’ll discover is a workforce who could make anybody sweat. They simply haven’t put all of it collectively for a full match.
Taking scalps is the phrase O’Dea makes use of when describing large wins. Their first got here in Saquarema, sweeping a powerful Estonian workforce whose resume boasts a fifth in World Championships and an Elite16 semifinal. However, as Fuller alluded to, they narrowly missed wins over Brazil’s Pedro and Guto, dropping 18-20 within the third set, and Tri Bourne and Chaim Schalk, who edged them 15-12 within the third. A month later, in China, they pushed the Grimalt cousins, Esteban and Marco, to 22-24 within the first set, misplaced the second, and watched as Chile went on to win the gold medal. A month after that? A 21-23 third-set loss to Austria’s Julian Horl and Alex Horst within the closing spherical of the qualifier. In a month, Horl and Horst shall be competing within the Olympic Video games.
“I’m getting extra comfy,” Fuller mentioned of these tight matches in opposition to excessive degree groups. “Getting the reps of these matches now. I get pleasure from these matches and I come out of them pondering I’m not deflated, I’m uplifted, subsequent time we’re getting that. Spirits are excessive.”
There’s, on this season, just one extra “subsequent time” to flip the slim losses into wins. That comes this weekend in Ningbo Xiangshan, China, on the Asian Volleyball Federation Continental Cup, the place the stakes are a bid to the Olympics. The profitable federation goes to Paris. The remaining go residence. Easy and brutal. O’Dea and Fuller shall be joined by Thomas Reid and Jack McManaway, who’ve made the semifinals in all three Futures they’ve performed this season, profitable bronze in Coolangatta, Australia, and gold two weeks later in Tahiti.
With these two pairings, New Zealand has pretty much as good a shot as any in latest reminiscence to ship a workforce to an Olympic Video games for the primary time since 1996.
The truth that they’ve any shot in any respect is a credit score to at least one man: Jason Lochhead.
The Ginja Ninja, as he has affectionately turn out to be identified in the USA, Lochhead constructed the Vanuatu ladies’s program right into a reliable small energy, helped Ben Saxton and Chaim Schalk to the very best stretch of their careers via the 2016 Rio Olympic Video games after which moved to Tallahassee, Florida, to educate each Florida State and Nick Lucena and Phil Dalhausser heading into the Tokyo Video games. After Tokyo, nevertheless, Lochhead, one in all New Zealand’s most adorned — and positively most well-known — gamers, moved residence.
Excessive Efficiency Sport in New Zealand took observe.
“Jason deciding to return again to New Zealand was the catalyst for Excessive Efficiency Sport for New Zealand to say ‘Hey let’s discover some cash as a result of we’ve bought this Olympic coach coming again,’ so he type of began that program himself mainly,” O’Dea mentioned. “It’s night time and day from what it was.”
What was it earlier than, precisely?
“Us happening to hit just a few balls,” O’Dea mentioned, laughing. “Since Jason’s been again, it’s a correct program and he’s on a mission proper now and actually desires to push us. It’s an enormous job however it’s been nice.”
Lochhead’s return offered the impetus for O’Dea to contemplate rejoining this system on a extra common foundation. It drew Reid again from a latest CrossFit kick and lured McManaway, a proficient basketball participant, off the basketball courtroom and onto the seashore. It gave Fuller, who labored full-time for the native metropolis council — and nonetheless does — the nudge he wanted to spend extra time on the sand and deal with it much less as a pastime and extra as a reliable vocation.
“I’d settled down earlier than and mentioned I’ll give this volleyball factor a crack. That was a giant issue for me: we’ve bought a coach, bought some cash, let’s do that full time and see what occurs,” he mentioned. “Jason’s been superior. It’s a giant job.”
Certainly it’s. On any given day, Lochhead will practice the creating pairs, the highest ladies’s duo in Alice Zeimann and Shaunna Polley, often one other session after that — after which the lads. All at his personal home.
He has actually constructed the New Zealand program in his yard.
“And he’s popping out with the identical vitality,” O’Dea mentioned. “It’s spectacular.”
Much more spectacular could be if Lochhead and New Zealand had been capable of carry out this weekend in China, to take these scalps they’ve been looking for, to alas declare the end that has been eluding them. Like the lads, Zeimann and Polley have been so-close-you-can-taste-it this season. They’ve a big win on their resume, a 2022 victory over world No. 2 Taryn Kloth and Kristen Nuss, and vital hard-fought losses, too, particularly a number of three-setters in opposition to Italians Valentina Gottardi and Marta Menegatti and the previous Canadian pairing of Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes.
Like the lads, they’ve as wonderful a shot at profitable the Continental Cup as any in latest reminiscence. Joined by Olivia MacDonald and Danielle Quigley, they might want to fend off sturdy pairings from China, Japan, and Thailand.
“Pressure is one factor I’ve seen coming into these tournaments,” mentioned O’Dea, who’s now on his third continental cup. “You realize it’s a few days you need to play properly for and it’s all the time in your thoughts.”
A few days to get what they’ve been looking for all season: The breakthrough win.
The win that may push them off the precipice and immediately into the Olympic Video games.
