Volleyball: Ryan makes field

The eight-team men’s field for this weekend’s Oldsmobile Alero

Volleyball Series event at Crown Point Shores on San Diego’s Mission Bay

has been finalized with the addition of two tandems from the United

States.

The teams of Greg Ryan/Morgan Chapman, and Mike Mattarocci/Devin

Poolman - both from the U.S. - were added Wednesday to the volleyball

series event that is one of five sports held in conjunction with the 1999

Bank of America/U.S. Olympic Cup, which officially gets underway today.

Eight women’s and six men’s teams were announced last week as

having accepted invitations to compete at the three-day event, which

begins Friday and concludes on Sunday.

Ryan, of Huntington Beach, has teamed with Chapman (of Topanga) in

19 beach volleyball world tour events throughout the U.S. the past three

years. The pair posted both a fifth- and ninth-place finish in two recent

international challenger events this season, and also earned two Final

Four finishes in challenger events held last season.

The team of Mattarocci/Poolman is playing in their first

international event after having qualified for the U.S. Olympic Cup by

competing last May in the inaugural Alero Beach Volleyball Series event,

which kicked off on the sands of Huntington Beach.

The Oldsmobile Alero Beach Volleyball Series, an event which

features 10 former beach volleyball Olympians, is the first major

international event in the U.S. since the 1998 Goodwill Games, where

Brazil captured both the men’s and women’s gold medals in New York’s

Central Park.