Locals win AVP titles

SANTA BARBARA — Costa Mesa residents April Ross and Jake Gibb repeated as champions, but both played with new partners at the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals Santa Barbara Open completed Sunday at West Beach.

Ross, a Newport Harbor High product playing for the first time in an AVP event with three-time Olympic gold medalist Kerri Walsh Jennings, defeated the No. 3-seeded duo of Jennifer Fopma and Brooke Sweat in Sunday’s final.

Ross and Walsh Jennings, the No. 1 seeds, earned their fifth win without a loss in the event with a 21-18, 21-10 verdict in the final.

They split $15,000.

Gibb, this year playing with Casey Patterson, won their fourth straight AVP event by topping No. 4-seeded Tri Bourne and John Hyden, 21-19, 21-19, in Sunday’s final.

The win for Gibb and Patterson avenged a loss to the same duo in the winner’s bracket quarterfinals of the double-elimination event.

Gibb and Patterson, who will go for five straight when the AVP season concludes with the Huntington Beach Open on Oct. 17-20, split $15,000.

Former UC Irvine standout Whitney Pavlik, playing with Annett Davis, finished tied for ninth in the women’s event.

— From staff reports