[UH VOLLEYBALL]
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Warriors washed away MALIBU, Calif. >> Several members of the Hawaii volleyball team like to surf, but the Warriors may have gotten too much Wave action yesterday.
Hawaii loses to Pepperdine but
looks to a successful first
game for inspirationBy Grace Wen
gwen@starbulletin.comBehind a slew of aces and tough blocking, Pepperdine defeated Hawaii 24-30, 30-25, 30-25, 30-27 to capture the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship. The Waves earn the conference's automatic bid and the top-seed in next week's NCAA championship.
Hawaii will find out today if it will join Pepperdine, Penn State (the East winner), and Ball State (the Midwest representative) in the final four. The three-member NCAA committee convenes via conference call at 9 a.m. Hawaii time to select the at-large team.
"I wanted to win this match, but I'll take what happened," Hawaii coach Mike Wilton said. "I'm not satisfied with losing, but we're coming out of the match with some confidence. We know that if we can steady it out a little bit, (we can) put together a little bit more of a complete match and cut down on their runs with their serves. That's what our objective is, if we ever get a chance to play them again."
The Warriors were aced eight times. MPSF Player of the Year Brad Keenan led the Waves with four.
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In spite of the passing problems, Hawaii had a more balanced attack, with four players hitting in double figures. Costas Theocharidis led Hawaii with 17 kills but hit only .136. Eyal Zimet and Delano Thomas each had 10 kills, while Tony Ching chipped in 12. In his first match this season against Pepperdine, Thomas helped the Warriors, hitting .381 and blasting two aces.A crowd of 2,589 at Firestone Fieldhouse -- about a third of them Hawaii fans -- watched the Warriors play as well as it has this season in Game 1. The Warriors served tough and played solid defense to complement an offense that hit .528. Hawaii's trio of outside hitters (Theocharidis, Ching and Zimet) combined for 17 of Hawaii's 21 kills in Game 1.
Hawaii's passing crumbled after a serving blitz by Keenan in Game 2. The junior fired three aces as the Waves surged to a 6-1 lead. That was all Pepperdine needed for the rest of the match.
"We became unsteady," Wilton said. "They came back and played with the tenacity that we had in Game 1. And then we started unraveling a little bit. Our peaks and valleys were too pronounced and they were steadier than us the rest of the way. We were just too up and down."
Hawaii led 9-6 in Game 3 before the passing put it in trouble again. This time it was Lance Walker who hit an ace and keyed effective blocking with his serve as Beau Daniels and Fred Winters stuffed two Warriors to knot the score. The Waves got two quick kills from Keenan on a slide set and a cross-court blast from freshman Sean Rooney for a 12-10 lead. The Warriors spent the rest of the game playing catch up and trying to find a way to get back on the Waves. But momentum was so far gone that Wilton yanked Theocharidis and setter Kimo Tuyay. This time Daniel Rasay and Jose Delgado couldn't ignite the team much as Pepperdine continued to roll.
"They're a very good team in system and our serving was not up to task that first set," Waves assistant coach Jeff Stork said. "That is a very good receiving team and it takes a lot to get them out of system. I'd give credit to our servers.
"Both teams were fighting hard. We were able to apply a little bit more pressure on their siding out than they were able to apply on ours."
The Warriors didn't pressure the Waves and never had any momentum in the final game. Each time Hawaii came close to catching Pepperdine, the Warriors would stumble. Neither team hit well, with each team adding five blocks.
"Pepperdine consolidated a little bit," UH middle blocker Dejan Miladinovic said. "We didn't serve as aggressively and they started serving very sharp jumpers. We jumped on them the first game. They jumped on us the second game. The rest of the games were pretty even.
"We had a really good game plan. We didn't happen to execute it all the time. We set our blocking really well and Vernon (Podlewski) did a great job. We had a little trouble converting digs and defense into points."
Podlewski scrapped up 11 balls, but the Warriors didn't take advantage of their second chances. Hawaii's hitting steadily dropped as the night progressed. Pepperdine didn't fare much better, but it did get timely kills from Walker, who finished with a match-high 18. Rooney added 16 kills but didn't have nearly the same devastating effect he had in the Waves' two regular season wins.
"We did an okay job containing their key hitters," Miladinovic said. "I''m confident that this proved that we can definitely play against them and beat them. I'm sure everyone on the team believes that and we're going to take that to Penn State."
Added Eyal Zimet:
"We know we can beat them and it's a great boost for our confidence. They were looking very confused in the first game. We just have to work on these things harder. Hopefully we meet them again."
And next time they'd like to control the surf the whole time.
30-26, 30-27, 30-22 Pepperdine def. Hawaii
Warriors (22-8) g k e att pct. bs ba d Miladinovic 4 9 0 18 .500 0 8 1 Tuyay 4 1 1 2 .000 0 4 2 Zimet 4 10 5 21 .238 0 2 9 Podlewski 4 0 0 3 .000 0 0 11 Theocharidis 4 17 11 44 .136 0 4 8 Delgado 2 0 2 3 -.667 0 0 2 Ching 4 12 8 25 .160 0 3 5 Thomas 4 10 2 21 .381 1 3 3 Rasay 1 0 0 0 .000 0 1 0 Totals 4 59 29 137 .219 1 25 41 Waves (28-4) g k e att pct. bs ba d Van Reusen 4 3 3 9 .000 0 4 0 Gledhill 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Daniels 4 2 0 3 .667 0 3 6 Keenan 4 6 1 17 .294 0 11 2 Winters 4 10 8 25 .080 2 6 8 Walker 4 18 7 38 .269 0 5 12 Rooney 4 16 6 45 .222 0 2 7 Olson 4 0 0 0 .000 0 0 8 Totals 4 55 25 137 .219 2 31 43 Key--g: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct.: hitting percentage; bs: block solos; ba: block assists; d: digs.
Aces -- Hawaii (4): Thomas 2, Theocharidis, Delgado. Pepperdine (8): Keenan 4, Gledhill, Daniels, Winters, Walker. Assists -- Hawaii (55): Tuyay 43, Rasay 8, Theocharidis 2, Zimet, Ching. Pepperdine (51): Daniels 45, Van Reusen 3, Keenan 2, Walker.
T -- 2:00. Officials -- Marvin Hall, Ken Taylor. A --2,589.
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