Sunday, April 22, 2001

[ UH WARRIOR VOLLEYBALL ]

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FL MORRIS / STAR-BULLETIN
Hawaii's Dejan Miladinovic, left, and Costas Theocharidis block a shot
by USC's Brook Billings in their first-round MPSF playoff match at
the Stan Sheriff Center last night. Hawaii swept USC, 30-22, 30-18,
30-20, to advance to play Brigham Young in Provo, Utah.

Warriors sweep
past Trojans

Hawaii advances to play
BYU in the semifinals of
the MPSF playoffs

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By Grace Wen
Star-Bulletin

The University of Hawaii men's volleyball team posted a season-high 27 blocks and cruised to its fastest win all year in last night's Mountain Pacific Sports Federation quarterfinal against the University of Southern California.

Before a crowd of 5,948, the Warriors handily disposed of the Trojans, 30-22, 30-18, 30-20, in less than an hour and a half to advance to the MPSF semifinals.

"They didn't play as well as we expected, but we didn't care," outside hitter Costas Theocharidis said. "We just wanted to come out, play well, and win the first round. It was the first time for us after last year's loss. It was kind of like payback."

Hawaii not only avenged last year's loss, but did so convincingly, outblocking the Trojans 27-5.5 and holding USC to a minus-.035 hitting percentage. The Warriors suffocated an already anemic USC offense that was missing two of its starters.

Middle blocker Donny Killian watched from the bench with a shoulder injury, while outside hitter Eli Fairfield didn't even make the trip. (Fairfield quit the team a week before the Trojans' last match of the regular season.)

The Trojan bench was painfully thin as head coach Pat Powers tried desperately to find a hot hitter to jumpstart the USC offense.

"We got blocked a lot," Powers said. "We couldn't put a ball away. It seemed like there were four arms in our face all night. We never established a middle and totally hurt our outsides."

Hawaii moves on to a semifinal match Thursday against Brigham Young University, which was a first-round winner over UC Irvine. The top four seeds in the MPSF tournament advanced as No. 2 Long Beach State swept Pepperdine and UCLA eliminated Stanford.

Hawaii def. USC, 3-0

30-22, 30-18, 30-20.

WARRIORS (18-6, 12-5 MPSF)

	g	k	e	att	pct.	bs	ba	d
Miladinovic	3	5	1	8	.500	1	13	1
Tuyay	3	1	0	2	.500	1	6	2
Zimet	3	4	1	12	.250	1	6	8
Theocharidis	3	10	3	27	.259	1	6	3
Davis	3	9	2	13	.538	0	5	5
Tukuafu	3	5	2	11	.273	2	6	3
Podlewski	3	0	0	0	.000	0	0	0
Denitz	1	0	0	0	.000	0	0	1
Totals	3	34	9	73	.342	6	42	30

TROJANS (18-6, 12-5 MPSF)

	g	k	e	att	pct.	bs	ba	d
Julian	3	9	9	25	.000	0	1	8
Billings	3	13	17	42	-.095	0	2	4
Dusharms	2	0	2	4	-.500	0	2	1
Day	3	4	1	15	.200	0	2	0
McGann	3	2	2	6	.000	0	0	4
Hickman	2	1	3	10	-.200	0	3	1
Jordan	3	2	2	6	.000	0	0	3
Rawl	2	3	2	6	.167	0	1	1
Burden	3	0	0	0	.000	0	0	4
Totals	3	34	38	114	-.035	0	11	26

Key--g: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct.: hitting percentage; bs: block solos; ba: block assists; d: digs.

Aces--Hawaii(3): Zimet, Theocharidis, Tukuafu. USC (6): Hickman 2, Dusharms 2, Billings, Julian.

Assists--Hawaii (32): Tuyay 29, Tukuafu 2, Theocharidis. USC (31) McGann 27, Billings 2, Day.

T--1:26. Officials--Marvin Hall, Ernest Ho. A--5948.

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UH Athletics
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