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Tokuno, Kusuhara sip from Marianas Cup
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Posted on Feb 27 2005
The tandem of Ryoko Tokuno and Chiaki Kusuhara rallied from the depths of the losers’ bracket to down the team that sent them there in the women’s finals of the 13th Marianas Cup Beach Volleyball Festival in three furious sets of beach volleyball on the sand court behind the Pacific Islands Club yesterday.
Tokuno and Kusuhara defeated Eiko Koizumi and Shinako Tanaka to take their second Marianas Cup title in three years by winning two of three sets in the final game that went down to the wire. The champs jumped out to take the first set 21-17, but quickly had the tables turned on them in the second, as Koizumi and Tanaka flipped the script 21-18 to force a third set up to 15 points.
Tokuno and Kusuhara finally avenged their earlier loss when they put the finishing touches on a 15-9 victory in the clincher. The duo took home $2,800 in cash as well as round trip airfare and accommodations at the PIC for next year’s tournament.
Their road to the finals was not as easy as that of their competition, as Tokuno and Kusuhara had to continue with the knowledge that their next loss would have been their last.
After suffering a 21-23 loss in the winner’s bracket to Koizumi and Tanaka, Tokuno and Kusuhara won consecutive matches over Shin and Shirai (21-9) and Urata and Seiki (21-13) in the losers’ bracket to force a showdown with the only team that had an answer for their combination of power and finesse.
This was the second time that the team has played together in Saipan in their seven years as teammates, but it also marks the last. Tokuno and Kusuhara are returning to Japan to practice with their new partners before they start their season with the Pro Beach Volleyball World Tour in May.
While the 13th Marianas Cup Beach Volleyball Festival sponsored by Pepsi and Miller Lite is the biggest event of the season for the Northern Marianas Islands Volleyball Association, it is not the last.
The bumpers, setters, and spikers will be moving forward to raise funds to send this year’s team to the 2005 South Pacific Mini Games in Palau this July, and some of their proposed activities include future tournaments in the coming weeks and months before they leave.
