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Saturday, January 22, 2000
BYU goes the
distance to hand
’Bows first loss
It took over three hours and
By Cindy Luis
five games for the Cougars
to put away UH
Star-BulletinDefense is supposedly a lost art in men's college volleyball. But it was a defensive masterpiece last night when No. 7 Hawaii and No. 8 Brigham Young combined for 162 digs in a marathon match at the Stan Sheriff Center.
In one of the longest NCAA men's matches on record, the Cougars prevailed after 3 hours and 26 minutes, 15-12, 15-11, 14-16, 11-15, 16-14. Ten players - five on each side - were in double-dig figures, with each team's libero (Hawaii's Russell Lockwood and BYU's Brad Goldston) vacuuming up 20 apiece.
A vocal crowd of 4,904 saw the Rainbows drop their conference opener for the first time in Mike Wilton's eight seasons, and for the first time since 1991.
"I've never played a team that was that good defensively,'' said BYU's Joaquin Acosta, who put down a team-high 30 kills. "They dug us a lot and there were some great, long rallies.
"It was a tough match and it could have gone either way. At the end, we got lucky.''
Jaime Mayol's 22nd - and match-winning kill - will be replayed in Torry Tukuafu's mind for a while. Tukuafu, who transferred from BYU to Hawaii after his freshman year, made the read on Mayol on the outside only to have the ball deflect off his hands and beyond the reach of the Rainbow defense to end it.
"I wanted this one bad,'' said Tukuafu, who had 24 kills and hit a match-high .550. "I choked on the last ball, thought he was going to hit high hands so I pulled back. If I had gone strong, he would have been roofed."It was frustrating all night, to have to make a comeback that we didn't need to make if we has just been clicking from the beginning.''
Hawaii (2-1, 0-1 MPSF) started slowly and had to play catch-up most of the night. After dropping Games 1 and 2 and trailing 6-3 in Game 3, Wilton subbed in freshman Tony Ching for Eyal Zimet.
The Kamehameha Schools product got aced on his first collegiate play and rallied the Rainbows with some tough serving and smart hitting. In the rally-score Game 5, it was Ching who served for two points as Hawaii held off match point at 14-11 to tie it at 14-all.
"All I was thinking (at 14-14) was to keep the serve in,'' said Ching.
Ching did but Mayol responded with a kill to give the Cougars match point. BYU, which had lost in five at Pacific on Tuesday, wasn't going to let it happen again, going to Mayol for the match-ender.
Afterward, the crowd stayed to applaud Hawaii's effort. The Rainbows had five players turn in double-double performances, with Costas Theocharidis putting down a match-high 34 kills and adding 15 digs.
Clay Stanley had 33 kills and 10 digs, Tukuafu 24 kills and 10 digs and Brenton Davis had 18 kills to go with 14 blocks.
"Sure there's disappointment,'' said Wilton.
"But there was a lot of good that came out of this match.
"We grew a lot tonight, came back from the depths of despair. But we just couldn't get it done when we needed to. For such an early-season match, it was some pretty good volleyball on both sides.''
Both teams finished with 24 blocks. Matt Olsen was in on 15 stuffs for BYU, to go with 12 kills.
Hawaii set a school record for most assists last night. The Rainbows had 123, eclipsing the mark of 122 set against BYU in a five-game loss in 1997 at Provo.
Hawaii will take two days off before getting ready to host one of the premier tournaments in the country. The sixth Outrigger Invitational runs Wednesday through Friday and features No. 1 UCLA , Indiana-Purdue Ft. Wayne and Penn State.
No. 8 BYU def. No. 7 Hawaii, 15-12, 15-11, 14-16, 11-15, 16-14
Cougars (5-1 overall, 2-1 MPSF)
G K E ATT PCT. BS BA D Olsen 5 12 3 26 .346 0 15 2 Jennings 5 21 10 65 .169 0 6 13 Mayol 5 22 17 64 .078 1 2 10 Pitzak 5 3 2 10 .100 1 9 13 Bunker 5 19 3 37 .432 0 7 4 Acosta 5 30 15 70 .214 0 5 10 Goldston 5 0 0 0 .000 0 0 20 Steinert 4 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Totals 5 107 50 272 .210 2 72 72Rainbows (2-1 overall, 0-1 MPSF)
G K E ATT PCT. BS BA D Zimet 4 8 3 21 .238 1 2 8 Krejci 5 2 3 7 -.143 0 8 16 Theocharidis 5 34 19 75 .200 0 6 15 Davis 5 18 4 37 .378 1 13 5 Stanley 5 33 25 84 .095 0 5 11 Tukuafu 5 24 2 40 .550 0 8 10 Lockwood 5 0 0 0 .000 0 0 20 Ching 3 7 2 15 .333 0 2 7 Totals 5 126 58 279 .244 2 16 92Key--g: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct.: hitting percentage; bs: block solos; ba: block assists; d: digs.Aces--UH (2): Theocharidis 1, Tukuafu 1. BYU (6): Pitzak 3, Jennings 1, Mayol 1, Bunker 1. Assists--UH (123): Krejci 111, Zimet 5, Ching 2, Lockwood 2, Davis 1, Stanley 1, ,Tukuafu 1.BYU (103): Pitzak 96, Mayol 2, Goldston 2, Jennings 1, Acosta 1, Steinert 1.
Yellow cards-UH 1, BYU 1.
T-3:26. Officials: 3:26..
http://uhathletics.hawaii.edu
Ka Leo O Hawaii
