WOMEN’S BEACH VOLLEYBALL : Carrillo Finding Right Chemistry with Masakayan

Once Linda Carrillo realized the sun didn’t rise and set in direct correlation with her performance, the bounce was back in beach volleyball.

And except for some tenuous moments, this season has been a blast. Carrillo and Liz Masakayan, who have teamed in 18 tournaments since the middle of the 1991 season, have won three of the first seven events on the Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. tour. At the Pacific Beach Pier on Saturday, they advanced through the winners’ bracket quarterfinals to today’s semifinals beginning at 9 a.m.

Second-seeded Carrillo-Masakayan will meet sixth-seeded Jackie Silva and Cammy Ciarelli, 15-12 upset winners over third-seeded Janice Harrer and Nancy Reno. The other semifinal pits top-seeded and San Diego-based Karolyn Kirby and Angela Rock against Patty Dodd and Elaine Roque, who are playing together for the first time in their five years on the tour.

In a year expected to be dominated by Kirby-Rock, the success of Carrillo-Masakayan is a bit of a jolt. Last year they teamed up for the first time here and played in 10 more events before they hit pay dirt in Las Vegas.

“Let’s say we’re very appreciative of (the success),” said Masakayan, 27. “We both expected to raise our game this year and we have. But we didn’t go into the season expecting to win every tournament. That’s a lot of pressure. In fact, Linda and I always joke about, ‘Gee, I wonder how we’ll do this weekend.’ ”

These light moments are relatively new to Carrillo, who with Silva won 15 events in 1987 and 1988, a record Kirby-Rock could break with a victory today. Playing with Silva is nothing but intense, and a long-term partnership with Harrer was taxing in other ways.

“This year I’m more relaxed. I’m enjoying playing more,” said Carrillo, 34. “With Jackie we’d win 15-4 and she’d want to win 15-0; she pushed for the best. With Janice, it was a lot of pressure to ‘do this or do that.’ ”

Linda Hanley, who left the tour to have a baby last year, initially showed Carrillo the game didn’t have to be a pressure cooker. Masakayan has simply carried on the tradition.

“I realized you don’t have to play so tense with Linda,” she said. “Sure there are times that (Liz or I) yell, but we just keep rolling along. Liz is probably the most comfortable I’ve felt with a partner.”

More so than Masakayan felt when she called Carrillo to initiate the partnership. Although she and Reno had just taken a third at Hermosa Beach, Masakayan was typically more of a fifth through ninth finisher and she was looking to add some consistency to her game.

“For someone like me to call one of the top four players, it was a risk,” Masakayan said. “I figured if she said yes, great, if she said no, oh well. I’m glad she took it.”

Carrillo, the WPVA’s No. 2 career money winner, wasn’t expecting the call: “I said, ‘Hey, you just beat me this weekend, why are you calling me?’ ”

Both players would love to get the call to play in Barcelona this summer. For the first time, two-man and two-woman beach volleyball will be an exhibition sport in the Olympics. If the WPVA can iron out the contractual agreement with one of the sport’s governing bodies, two top teams from the tour will go to Spain.

“It’s a dream,” said Carrillo, a member of the 1984 Olympic team that won a silver medal in Los Angeles. “I didn’t play much on that Olympic team. Beach volleyball has always been my first love.”