BEACH VOLLEYBALL : Kirby, Masakayan Cap Near-Perfect Year

Karolyn Kirby and Liz Masakayan capped an impressive season by winning the $20,000 World Championships on Sunday at Manhattan Beach.

The top-ranked team in women’s pro beach volleyball finished the year with a 75-5 record and won 12 of 13 tournaments on the Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. tour.

For their last title, Kirby and Masakayan defeated third-seeded Elaine Roque and Gail Castro, 15-9, in a lengthy final that included several exciting rallies.

The winners will split $5,300 and each will take home a new sports car, awarded to the top two players of 1993.

Castro and Roque will split $3,900.

“They played awesome,” Masakayan, a former UCLA All-American and U.S. Olympian, said of the losers. “Gail’s serve was really on. She was serving great.”

The match was tied five times, but at 9-9 Kirby and Masakayan got on a roll, with a series of aggressive shots and tough serves.

“When they serve, the speed of the ball is unbelievable,” said Roque, the women’s volleyball coach at Santa Monica College. “They were serving so fast I couldn’t even move my feet. When they hit the ball that fast, they’re the best team on the court.”

Roque-Castro was the only team to challenge Kirby and Masakayan during the 32-team event, which began Saturday.

Kirby-Masakayan gave up a total of five points in three matches Saturday. They beat fourth-seeded Dennie Knoop and Deb Richardson, 15-1, in a winners’ bracket semifinal on Sunday morning and Roque-Castro, 15-5, in the winners’-bracket final.

Roque-Castro upset second-seeded Barbra Fontana and Lori Kotas, 15-10, in the losers’-bracket final to earn a spot in the final against Kirby-Masakayan.

“I thought they would be exhausted,” said Kirby, who won last year’s World Championship with Nancy Reno. “But they looked fresh to me. They played the best I’ve seen them play.”

Fontana and Kotas will split $2,700 for placing third, and Richardson-Knoop will split $1,900.