USA Volleyball

Three American Teams Emerge From Cincinnati Open Qualifier

Three American Teams Emerge From Cincinnati Open Qualifier

Three American teams qualify for the FIVB Cincinnati Open: Taylor and Trevor Crabb, Jeremy Casebeer and Derek Olson and Irene Hester Pollock and Caitlin Ledoux.

May 18, 2016 by Megan Kaplon
Three American Teams Emerge From Cincinnati Open Qualifier
The Crabb brothers are on a roll. A little over a week after they played in their first AVP tour final against Casey Patterson and Jake Gibb, Taylor and Trevor Crabb qualified for their second international tour main draw as partners.

As the top seed in the qualifier, the Sand Crabbs, as the duo is known, only had to win one match. They did so easily, eliminating Polish duo Marcin Jagoda and Szymon Tralka 21-12, 21-18.

Taylor and Trevor will take on Cole Durant and Bo Soderberg of Austria in their first pool play match this morning.

Jeremy Casebeer and Derek Olson also made the main draw, defeating New Zealand duo Jason Lochhead and Sonny Hirini 21-19, 21-16.

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On the women’s side, Irene Hester Pollock and Caitlin Ledoux won a back and forth three-set match over Austrian twins Nadine and Teresa Strauss 16-21, 21-13, 15-10 to earn their spot in the main draw.

[tweet url="https://twitter.com/Irene__Pollock/status/732753882489573376" hide_media="0" hide_thread="1"]

Ali McColloch and Kelly Reeves, however, came up short, dropping their qualifier match to Germans Anna Behlen and Anika Krebs.

The Crabbs, Casebeer and Olson and Hester Pollock and Ledoux join 11 other American teams in the main draw, starting at 9 a.m. ET today.

The women’s finals of the Cincinnati Open will air live on NBC on Saturday, May 21, at 3 p.m. ET, and the men’s finals will be taped on Saturday and broadcast on Sunday, May 22, on NBC Sports Network at 3 p.m. ET.