Sidelines
UH fans get rare look
at real opponentHedder Ilustre twisted, a pig-tailed pretzel on the floor, but it was already impossible. She was too late. The ball spun away, and the match was over and Hawaii's winning streak with it.
And for the first time in two hours, everyone exhaled.
I think the lesson here is clear:
No matter the political differences you may be having with someone, if that person offers you a free ticket to a sold-out UH-Stanford volleyball match, you take that ticket.
You missed it, Linda. You could have smiled at the crowd. You could have looked gubernatorial. You could have done "the wave."
You could have felt this, along with 10,252.
It wasn't a great match, last night's 3-0 Stanford win over Hawaii. It wasn't perfect. Especially not for UH, a team hoping for the final four and beyond. But it was a wall of sound. The place was marinating in emotion. This was it, Stanford coming in against Number One. Real competition. Real volleyball.
UH-Stanford volleyball.
It was loud last night. The kind of loud that shakes you in your bones and stirs you in your heart. The kind of loud that makes your extremities go numb.
And Stanford was the team that responded.
Stanford's ball went through the block, and Hawaii had control and Hawaii lost it.
Almost every dig was one where you had to go to your knees, you had to dive for it. The hitting was that hard, that good, and for much of the night anyone who couldn't get off of their feet could only watch those balls go by.
This was a new level, a new game. The fans were ready. But their team hadn't seen this kind of play in quite some time.
"No, we have," Lily Kahumoku said. "I think that the Russian team was as good or better."
"When we played Russia," Kim Willoughby added, "we were actually down," and came back to win.
And so UH was exhilarated to be in a match this big, disgruntled to lose it.
"We're very disappointed," Hawaii coach Dave Shoji said. "We had chances to win Game 1 and Game 2."
Hawaii was as good as Stanford, as talented, maybe as tough. But UH couldn't keep up that level for an entire game, forget an entire match.
By the third game the Wahine were playing with desperation, doing everything to keep it all from slipping away. Fighting. Hanging on by their pinkies.
"We clawed back," Shoji said. "It's just hard to score against them."
And so the jaws are set now. Frustration. Determination.
Kahumoku talked about making adjustments, and responding to teams that get hot. Willoughby talked about maybe being intimidated by Stanford.
"Logan Tom is probably the best volleyball player in the world," she said.
Pitooey on that, she said.
"It's like Stanford is Boise to me. I don't care what the name on the back of your shirt says."
Hawaii needed this, Shoji said. Needed Stanford on this night, needed to see this, needed to feel it.
Ilustre twisted, and Hawaii fell. The record was no longer perfect, the match far from it. But everyone in the building was glad that they had seen this. Glad that they had come.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com