Warriors rebound to topple Gauchos

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. » Revenge, it is said, is a dish best served cold. But redemption is sweeter when it's hot.

Matt Carere's arm was hot last night, as the senior left-side hitter more than redeemed himself after the .000 hitting effort on Friday.

Carere put down 23 kills to share team-high honors with opposite Lauri Hakala as No. 7 Hawaii wore down No. 8 UC Santa Barbara 38-36, 28-30, 30-28, 30-21 in a men's volleyball match at Robertson Gym.

Junior libero-turned-hitter Eric Kalima added 11 kills for the Warriors, who evened their season and Mountain Pacific Sports Federation records at 1-1. Hawaii middles Dio Dante (9) and Kyle Klinger (8) combined for 17 kills and Dante was in on six of the team's 13 1/2 blocks.

The Gauchos slipped to 2-3 overall, 1-1 MPSF.

"I'd like to think that Carere realized that, 'Hey, I'm a good player' and behaved like one," Warrior coach Mike Wilton said. "He was real anxious (Friday).

"Tonight, the key was we passed and served much better. We were able to run our offense for the most part. We need ball-control to run the quicker offense and we were able to do that."

The mental key may have been winning Game 1, where each team had four swings at ending it. UCSB led 29-26 and appeared to have won it on a block, only to have Gaucho All-American Evan Patak called for a net violation.

Hawaii battled back to tie it at 30-30 on a kill by Dante. The Warriors went ahead at 34-33 and eventually won it when Carere and Dante teamed to block Patak.

"That was huge, winning that one," Wilton said. "It was wonderful that they hung in and pulled it out."

After two tight games, Hawaii was able to get some separation in Game 3, pulling away to leads of 26-22 and 28-24. At 29-24, UCSB held off four game points, thanks to Patak.

Patak sandwiched two kills between his sixth and seventh aces to bring his team within 29-28. But the All-American served into the net to end Game 3.

The Warriors dominated Game 4 and hit .684 in taking a 20-13 lead. Hawaii had match point at 29-20 when Patak put down what would be his 25th kill.

There would be no more heroics as he again served into the net to end the match after 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Bryan Berman added 16 kills and Aaron Richman 14.

Hawaii returns home to host the 12th Outrigger Hotels Invitational on Wednesday through Friday.

On opening day, No. 2 UCLA (2-2) takes on No. 10 Ohio State (4-0) at 4 p.m. followed by Hawaii facing No. 6 Penn State (1-1).

Around the league: Former all-state player Jonathan Charette (Pearl City) had nine kills and six block assists in BYU's 3-1 win over Cal State Northridge last night. Isaac Kneubuhl (Kamehameha) had 10 kills for the losing Matadors. ... In the second start of his career, junior Jon Grobe (Iolani) put down 14 kills as Pepperdine beat Pacific 3-1. Freshman Eric Liebert (Punahou), starting in place of the injured Andy Heim, added five kills and was in on the match-ending block, along with Grobe. ... Sophomore Corey Spence (Seabury Hall) had eight kills in Cal Baptist's 3-0 loss at Long Beach State.