McPeak, Reno Capture the Nationals Title : Volleyball: Team outlasts Hanley and Kirby in final WPVA tour stop of the season.

HUNTINGTON BEACH —  Holly McPeak and Nancy Reno capped an incredible year in the Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. Sunday by winning the tour’s season-ending Nationals in Huntington Beach.

Top-ranked McPeak and Reno defeated second-seeded Linda Hanley and Karolyn Kirby, 15-11, in a lengthy match that included 63 sideouts.

McPeak, a setter on UCLA’s 1990 national championship team, and Reno, a former Stanford All-American, finished the season with a 28-match winning streak, seven WPVA titles and a tour-high $54,240 each in prize money. That includes the $4,700 they each earned Sunday.

Hanley, a Laguna Beach High graduate and former UCLA All-American, and Kirby, a former U.S. national team member who competed at Kentucky, will split $7,000.

In only their third tournament together, Hanley and Kirby could not overcome McPeak-Reno’s consistent and powerful game.

“It’s a tough story going up against Nancy and Holly, who have trained together for eight months, in the Nationals,” Hanley said. “We thought we could come out and be the dream team, but it’s not that easy. We’ve learned that the hard way.”

Time together is only one of many weapons McPeak and Reno possess in a sport where partner changes are frequent.

This is a team that has it all; an incredibly powerful blocker--probably the best on the tour--and lethal hitter in Reno who is almost 6 feet and one of the game’s quickest athletes, who can dig the hardest of shots. That would be McPeak, who at 5-7 can also leap well above the net to pound balls.

“They’re both great players and they have a great system,” said Kirby, the winningest player in the WPVA with 55 tournament titles. “They’re also a very technically sound team.”

Kirby and Hanley put up a good fight and hung on until the final minutes of the championship match. McPeak-Reno came out with a 3-0 lead, but Hanley served for two points and Kirby nailed an ace to tie the game.

The teams exchanged leads throughout and tied nine times. But at 11-11 Hanley and Kirby couldn’t managed to score though siding out didn’t seem to be a problem.

McPeak served and Reno blocked the return to take a 12-11 lead and Kirby sent a shot down the line wide on Reno’s serve for McPeak-Reno’s next point. Reno, who had a match-high seven blocks, scored her team’s next point with another powerful block.

“I don’t even want to see the stats on how many blocks she had,” Hanley joked after the match. “I managed to get some good, strong hits past her but she was just all over the net.”

Kirby and Hanley fought off four match points, but their inability to score at that time made it worthless. A Hanley kill accounted for the first one, then McPeak served into the net for the second.

Hanley smacked a shot down the line on the third match point and Kirby hit a cross-court kill on the fourth one.

Reno served for the fifth match point and McPeak dinked a shot to the left rear corner on the return for the victory. Hanley, a lefty, dived and practically ate sand to save the shot, but she barely touched it.

It’s strategically placed shots such as those, combined with power and agility, that make McPeak and Reno such a great combination.

“We’re only going to get better,” said McPeak. “Sometimes we’re so steady we break teams down.”

Liz Masakayan and Angela Rock finished third at Huntington Beach and Patty Dodd and Lisa Arce were fourth. Masakayan-Rock lost, 14-11, to Kirby-Hanley in the semifinals and came back to defeat Dodd-Arce, 15-13, for third place.