May-Treanor wins in Austria

Misty May-Treanor, a former Newport Harbor High standout, and Kerri Walsh won women’s gold medal at the FIVB Swatch Grand Slam in Klagenfurt, Austria Saturday.

May-Treanor and Walsh, seeded fourth, beat No. 2- seeded Chen Xue and Xi Zhang of China, 21-14, 26-24, before a vocal crowd of over 8,000. It was the 11th time in FIVB history that the China and the United States have met for the women’s gold medal. The U.S. leads, 9-2. That’s the same record May-Treanor and Walsh have over Xue and Chang. But the only other gold-medal match between the two-time Olympic champs and china’s 2008 Olympic bronze medalists was in Montreal, Canada in 2007.

“Who would have ever thought after two years of not playing together, Kerri having two children and me with my injuries, that we would have three gold medals this season and our fifth gold medal in Klagenfurt?” May-Treanor said in a FIVB release. “We did get a little hyped up near the end of the second set and wanted to get it over because we know how good the Chinese play and we didn’t want to give them any more opportunities to show it. Kerri and I really played well at this tournament and that’s not just because we won the gold medal. We had great strategies and we executed them very well for seven straight matches.”

The duo won their 38th career FIVB international gold medal as a team. It was their 58th final four appearance in 68 FIVB international events together.

May-Treanor and Walsh increased their 2011 FIVB Swatch World Tour season record to 48-9 with the victory and China’s Xue and Zhang are 51-16 with their silver-medal finish.

— From staff reports