Lucas Black plays on with dislocated shoulder

As employees finalized the placement of ads and not quite 50 fans looked on at the stadium at Hermosa Beach, Lucas Black dived for a ball and didn’t get back up.

In the third match he and partner Mike Nelson played Friday at the AVP Hermosa Beach Open, Black dislocated his left shoulder. After medics taped up the shoulder, Black returned to the court and finished the match, which the pair won in two games.

“I could still move,” Black said. “I had one good arm.”

As play opened Friday, 94 men’s teams and 68 women’s teams competed for 16 spots in main draw play, which begins Saturday.

When Black went down, his competitors, Mike Diehl and David Smith, thought it was over. But Black wanted to see it through. For most teams, a chance to play in the main event means everything.

“We put in a lot of time,” Black said. Nelson “doesn’t quit on me, so I won’t quit on him.”

Nelson, too, knows about persevering. He moved to California with his family in April after winning a battle with non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This is his first season of professional volleyball and he has qualified in three AVP tournaments.

The 16 teams that made it through at Hermosa played all day — the first match began at 8 a.m., and the last team to advance was determined near 7 p.m. — with no reward but to play again the next day against the best in the sport.

“It’s a little overwhelming, but that’s how you learn,” Nelson said.

Despite the pain in his shoulder, Black will play Saturday when the tournament begins at 9 a.m. — “I don’t have a choice,” he said — as the team works toward a time when the stadium will be full and ready to go as they begin a match.

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