Volleyball interest spiking

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE — With beach volleyball galvanizing viewers of the Olympics in Beijing, and the Extreme Volleyball Players Tour rolling into town this weekend, the sport is gathering extra attention at the South Shore.

Meghan Shuffelton, who is enrolled in the competitive sand volleyball class at Lake Tahoe Community College this summer, said the sport is getting hyped since Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh won their second consecutive gold medal in beach volleyball Thursday.

Even though Shuffelton hasn’t been watching the beach volleyball games religiously, she was able to catch a few highlights from the championship match against the Chinese team.

“There was a lot of pressure on those girls. Now they’ve won 108 matches,” Shuffelton said of the consecutive wins by May-Treanor and Walsh, including seven at these Olympics.

When Shuffelton was in high school, she was a defensive specialist on an indoor volleyball team. When she went to college, she played intramural beach volleyball. She decided to take the class this summer for fun because the game is different than playing indoors.

“You really have to move your feet,” Shuffelton said. “It’s easy to slide around, but sometimes you get stuck in a rut.”

Shuffelton said she likes beach volleyball because it’s outside, and she can play different positions.

The rules for beach volleyball are different, too, such as not being able to put spin on the ball when you set it, Shuffelton said.

Michael Plansky, director of past beach volleyball events, said the sport changed a lot when rally scoring replaced side-out scoring.

In the 1996 and 2000 Olympic games, players had to serve in order to score a point. With rally scoring, that isn’t necessary, Plansky said.

“If the score is 10-2 (in rally scoring), you’re pretty much done.” Plansky said. “But with side-out scoring, you were able to make a dramatic comeback.”

Since teams can score points only while serving, they are able climb out of slumps because the other team can’t keep scoring points.

Plansky said that during the 2000 Olympics, the U.S. men’s team of Dain Blanton and Eric Fonoimoana upset the top-seeded Brazil team for the gold medal. If it wasn’t for side-out scoring, Plansky said that win probably couldn’t have happened.

Plansky said teams like May-Treanor and Walsh, and Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers all have incredible athletes.

“I love watching them play, but I’d love to watch them play the old game,” Plansky said.

May-Treanor and Walsh visited the South Shore in September 2006 for the Lake Tahoe Best of the Beach tournament, part of the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour.

The AVP won’t be stopping in Tahoe during this year’s tour, but the Extreme Volleyball Players tour will. EVP is one of the primary volleyball tours in the United States, with more 10,000 athletes who compete March through October in 20 destinations.

Plansky said Lake Tahoe is one of the most beautiful places in the world to play beach volleyball, and Shuffelton agrees.

“You’re outside with the sun setting and Lake Tahoe is your background,” Shuffelton said. “It doesn’t get much better than that.”

• Contact reporter Sara Thompson at sthompson@tahoedailytribune.com.

Check it out: The two-day Extreme Volleyball Players Tour tournament, which concludes today, will be televised by Comcast Sports Net starting Sept. 14. Beach access is $5 per person.