Wahine keep streak going

Hawaii shakes off the loss of Jamie Houston to win again

All streaks come to an end.

But not last night.

Not even close.

Hawaii   Fresno St. 3 0 Next up at Fresno St., Friday

It took only 83 minutes for No. 15 Hawaii to keep the nation's longest conference winning streak alive, extending its Western Athletic Conference women's volleyball skein to 108. A Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 5,301 (7,253 tickets) also saw the Rainbow Wahine increase their conference home winning streak to 84 with the 30-21, 30-15, 30-18 victory over Fresno State.

And Hawaii obviously didn't need the 5-plus kills a game from sophomore hitter Jamie Houston, who missed her first start of the season when being held out of the contest for violating unspecified team rules, a decision made yesterday prior to the match.

In their eighth different starting lineup in 11 matches, the Wahine (7-4, 1-0) got 11 kills and five blocks from Sarah Mason as coach Dave Shoji used all 13 players. That luxury included seeing junior hitter Caroline Blood put down a career-high two kills in her first appearance of the season.

"I thought the passing was awesome tonight," said UH senior setter Kanoe Kamana'o, who was in on three of the team's 15 blocks. "It made the offense easier to run. It stunned Fresno's blockers. They didn't know where the ball was going.

"We tried to diversify the offense, get everyone involved. Our middles did a good job of making themselves available and, when Fresno had to commit to the middle, our outsides were ready."

The smaller Bulldogs (2-11, 0-2) had a problem matching up with Wahine middles Kari Gregory and Juliana Sanders, who combined for 12 kills and were in on seven blocks each.

Also throwing off Fresno's scouting report was the absence of Houston, which led to Jessica Keefe moving from the right to the left, and freshman Amber Kaufman moving from the middle to the right.

Keefe responded with eight kills in 17 swings and no errors, hitting .471.

"We did expect Houston to play," Bulldog coach Ruben Nieves said. "But they also did a very nice job of serving and blocking. That allowed for them to be successful.

"I thought they served us into trouble consistently and, in Games 2 and 3, contained us with their blocking. I expect them to be even better six days from now."

A quirk of the WAC schedule has Hawaii at Fresno State on Friday, the Wahine's first road trip.

"They'll be fresh in our minds," Shoji said. "We rarely get to play a team back-to-back."

With just one match this week, Hawaii was able to focus on just Fresno State as well as work on blocking.

"It was important for us to get our blocking going," Mason said. "We figured out their tendencies and got the job done. Tonight, we dominated. We want to stay strong on our side and not play down to their level."

Hawaii had seven of its blocks in Game 2 when holding Fresno State to negative .122 hitting percentage. The Wahine are now 38-0 against the Bulldogs.

"We've worked very hard on our block this week," Shoji said. "We had our best week of practice and we made progress."

"We don't match up with them in the middle and we had a hard time slowing them down," Nieves said. "And it's tough when you have to pay so much attention to the middles that it frees up their outside hitters. We're also going to have to do a better job of handling their serves and handling their big block.

"It's not easy to play Hawaii anywhere or any time. And when you have an All-American setter (Kamana'o) who is so consistent and so consistently good, it always gives you a chance to win."

Notes: Shoji said there were issues that needed to be resolved before Houston could return to the team. "Hopefully, we'll have a solution the first of the week," he said. Houston was not in the arena last night. ... Houston's absence meant that no Wahine has played in every game this season.

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