SAN FRANCISCO -- Sean Rosenthal heard countless times about how he and partner Jake Gibb had gone 0-9 when playing in AVP finals against the dominant tandem of Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers before finally breaking through in Long Beach six weeks ago.

So after he and Gibb stormed back for an 11-21, 21-19, 15-13 victory over Dalhausser and Rogers on Sunday in the finals of the AVP Crocs Tour San Francisco, Rosenthal wanted to use a little bit of new math:

"Let's figure we're 2-0 now," Rosenthal said.

Gibb and Rosenthal got to that point by taming one of the biggest assets of the reigning Olympic champions -- the predatory blocking of the rebranded "Beijing Beast" Dalhausser. That, in turn, prevented any repeat of the kind of absurd comeback that marked Dalhausser and Rogers' title victory in Santa Barbara last week, when the pair saved five consecutive match points before prevailing over Brad Keenan and John Hyden.

"You've got to keep Phil out of the match," Gibb said. "That's everyone's goal; it's just sometimes harder to do than it looks."

Third-seeded Gibb and Rosenthal, who lost in the finals of last year's San Francisco tournament, made that accomplishment look easier than it really was.

In last week's final, Dalhausser put down 13 blocks -- eight of them in the wild third game. Sunday, Dalhausser was limited to only five blocks against Gibb/Rosenthal, and only had one during the deciding final stanza.

"If you don't swing smart, Phil's the best blocker out here," Rosenthal said. "He'll make you pay. I was just trying to keep the ball away from Phil and make Todd beat us in transition, make him dig some balls and then he has to transition against our good defense. It was just a great win for us."

Said Dalhausser: "The second and third game, they did a good job of passing around and going to the hot hand ... Yeah, it's a little bit frustrating, but what can you do?"

For his part, Rogers blamed his own inability to turn more of his digs into better scoring opportunities.

"We could have easily won it if I had transitioned all the balls I dug, and I dug a lot, but I didn't, so kudos to them," Rogers said. "Rosie was digging a lot of balls, I was digging a lot of balls, but he transitioned more of them and I didn't. That's what I felt the difference was in the last two games."

There was no better example of that than three points from the end. With the top seeds trailing 13-12, Rogers was able to dig out an attack from Gibb, but his pass for Dalhausser was off course just enough that the "Beijing Beast" could do nothing more than bury it into the netting.

After a service fault, Gibb peeled a cross-court shot away from Dalhausser and into some wide-open real estate by the net for the match-clincher.

The win was made all the more impressive for the way in which Gibb and Rosenthal recovered from a five-minute dispute over whether a block by Gibb on Rogers had landed inbounds or out. The point was originally awarded to Gibb/Rosenthal, putting them up 13-9 in the third game, but upon learning the sideline had been inadvertently moved wider than it should have been by Dalhausser during the play, the decision was reversed, closing the gap to 12-10.

An easy point for Dalhausser/Rogers on their serve made it 12-11, at which point Gibb and Rosenthal wisely huddled up. Immediately after the timeout, Rosenthal smashed a ball off Dalhausser's attempted block for a 13-11 lead and regained some control.

"We called a timeout and Mike Dodd, our coach, just said, 'Hey, listen. We need to side out this ball. This is the biggest side out of the match. You side out this ball, you're going to win,'" Gibb said. "And Rosie put away a good ball."

The only question left was this: With a pair of wins over Dalhausser/Rogers since late July, has the Gibb/Rosenthal team closed the gap on the reigning world and Olympic champions?

"They're still the best team in the world," Gibb said. "I wouldn't read anything into this. They're still playing the best in the world, they're cruising through teams, cruising to every final, and they're really breaking a lot of records right now. It's just a really big win for us."