The U.S. men’s team, with two players from Hawaii competing, won gold, and the U.S. women’s team, with three former Rainbow Wahine, finished second at Sunday’s FIVB Snow Volleyball World Tour in Kronplatz/Plan de Corones, Italy.
The men’s team, with Punahou graduates Maddison and Riley McKibbin teamed with Troy Field, defeated Russia 9-15, 15-13, 22-20. The trio were the USA-2 team, which went from needing to qualify for the event to winning the championship.
It was the second straight silver for the women’s team comprised of former Hawaii beach All-Americans Katie Spieler and Karissa Cook, and indoor All-American Emily Hartong. They fell to the same Russia team they lost to in Austria, 15-13,
15-11.
They advanced to the championship with Sunday’s quarterfinal win over Poland (15-11, 16-14) and semifinal win over Argentina (15-12, 10-15, 15-8).
The winning men’s team had never competed on the snow before last weekend — “You should have seen us in our first match — passing, shanking and slipping all over the place,” Maddison McKibbin said. “To climb the peak of the mountain, it feels good.”
“To start from the bottom in the qualifier and to find ourselves in the finals, 22-20, I mean that’s as good as it gets,” Riley McKibbin added.
The team won two qualifying matches, then went 5-0 for the rest of the tournament. That included Sunday’s quarterfinal match against Slovenia (15-12, 22-20) and a semifinal match against Austria (15-6, 15-13).
The next World Tour event will be Aug. 1-4 in Argentina.
