Saturday, September 18, 1999

Wahine make
quick work
of Buffs

Hawaii suffers no letdown from
Thursday's big win over Long
Beach State in blowing away
No. 22 Colorado to
improve to 9-0

By Cindy Luis
Star-Bulletin

Rocky Mountain high.

That's where the Hawaii women's volleyball team was following Thursday's victory over No. 4 Long Beach State. That's where the third-ranked Wahine remained throughout most of the 15-9, 15-0, 15-5, 83-minute rout of No. 22 Colorado last night at the Stan Sheriff Center.

The anticipated letdown following the victory over the 49ers didn't materialize last night against the Buffaloes. Instead, the confidence Hawaii gained 24 hours earlier snowballed, burying Colorado under an avalanche of blocks (13) and bombs by Heather Bown (13 kills) and Lily Kahumoku (12).

"They're good, they're really talented and they can play through the minor mistakes," said Colorado coach Pi'i Aiu, a Kamehameha Schools graduate. "And they didn't make a whole lot of mistakes.

"The biggest thing we had to do was not let their block affect us. Our outsides are not as physical as theirs."

Nor did Hawaii's hitters have to face as mountainous a block as was put up by the Wahine. The 6-foot-3 Bown was in on 10 blocks while 6-1 freshman setter Jennifer Carey helped out on six.

At one point early in Game 3, Bown and Carey teamed to stuff Colorado's 5-10 sophomore Sonja Nielsen on three consecutive swings. That put Hawaii ahead, 5-0; two points later, the Wahine were up 7-0 and had outscored the Buffs 23-0, since scoring the final point of Game 1.

"This was the big week for us, beating Long Beach and now Colorado," said Wahine senior Heidi Ilustre. "We're pretty good right now. We still haven't played our best match.

"Colorado is a good team but we all did a good job against them, dominating them."

Hawaii (9-0) had four hitters at .360 or above, and hit .310 as a team. Colorado (6-2) hit .104, with Shana Bowen finishing with a team-high nine kills.

Credit Carey for really coming into her own the past two nights. The freshman saw the Colorado block well and set a very balanced attack.

The Wahine took advantage of the smaller Colorado outside hitters, with Bown and Jennifer Roberts (6 kills, .600) running very effective step-out plays. Kahumoku, who took a recruiting visit to Colorado, and Jessica Sudduth combined for 20 kills, most coming on left-side attacks.

"We had been hoping we'd get more offense from the left," said Hawaii coach Dave Shoji. "That's something we hadn't been getting the first two weeks. Jessica's played well and Lily brings a lot of offense.

"We've got to be happy with where we are, beating two good teams. I had hoped we'd be where we are but we had no idea how our young people (freshmen Carey and Kahumoku) would respond. Technically, Jen has a lot of room to improve, but that's hard to do when she's basically getting on-the-job training."

Hawaii started slowly, falling behind 4-0 in Game 1. The Wahine would finish the match with a 45-10 run, including their second 15-0 shutout of the season in Game 2.

"We had a lot of intensity (Thursday) and we tried to keep that again tonight," said Carey. "Colorado was in prime position to knock us down from that high we were on, but we didn't let them.

"I think we played looser and, once our block got going, once we got up on that high again, we never looked back. We were not going to let them play with us."

Hawaii next hosts Loyola Marymount in 7 p.m. matches next Friday and Saturday. The Wahine open defense of their WAC crown Oct. 1 against TCU.

Hawaii def. Colorado 15-9, 15-0, 15-5

Buffs (6-2)

		g	k	e	att	pct.	bs	ba	d
Barkman		3	6	2	24	.167	3	1	4
Campbell	3	3	1	7	.286	0	0	6
Engelking	3	3	4	13	-.077	0	0	5
Nielsen		3	7	9	29	-.069	0	1	12
Gower		3	7	2	23	.217	0	1	7
Bowen		3	9	4	29	.172	0	1	10
Small		1	0	0	0	.000	0	0	0
	Totals	3	35	22	125	.104	3	4	44

Rainbow Wahine (9-0)

		g	k	e	att	pct.	bs	ba	d
Carey		3	0	1	10	-.100	0	6	9
Sudduth		3	8	4	25	.160	0	3	10
Bown		3	13	4	25	.360	0	10	7
Kahumoku	3	12	1	22	.500	0	1	8
Lima		2	5	1	10	.400	1	0	7
Ilustre		3	3	2	10	.100	0	1	3
Vakasausau	3	0	0	0	.000	0	0	2
Nikolic		2	1	0	1	1.000	1	1	6
Makainai	1	0	0	0	.000	0	0	0
Roberts		3	6	0	10	.600	0	1	2
Lee		1	0	0	0	.000	0	0	3
	Totals	3	48	13	113	.310	2	23	57

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

Aces--Col: 0; UH (6): Bown 2, Lima 2, Carey 1, Sudduth 1. Assists--Col (32): Campbell 29, Nielsen 2, Gower 1; UH (45): Carey 42, Sudduth 1, Vakasausau 1, Roberts 1.

A--6,674. T--1:23. Officials--Denise Hanson, Ernest Ho.

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