Monday, October 25, 1999
Stanford sweeps
away Hawaii’s
unbeaten mark
The loss might hurt UH's
By Cindy Luis
chances of playing at home for
the NCAA regionals
Star-BulletinHome, sweet home? Not last night. Maybe not for the regionals.
No. 2 Hawaii may have lost more than a volleyball match last night at the Stan Sheriff Center. The 15-9, 15-12, 15-10 defeat at the hands of No. 7 Stanford might have also cost the previously unbeaten Wahine a chance at being at home throughout the NCAA Tournament.
The top four seeded teams, as rated by the NCAA Selection Committee, will host the regional tournaments that determine the four teams in the Dec. 16-18 championship at the Sheriff Center. With the Final Four in Honolulu for the first time in 10 years, the Wahine had hoped to stay put during the month of December.
"Nationally, I have no idea what this means,'' said Hawaii coach Dave Shoji, whose team lost to the Cardinal for the fifth straight outing. "I think we're still top four. But I don't know what the RPIs (rating percentage index used by the tournament committee) look like.
"Everybody (in the polls) has losses. I don't know what the coaches will be thinking when they vote this week. You have to put Stanford up there. They've had a very good week.''
The Cardinal (17-2) opened the week with a 3-2 victory over third-ranked Pacific. They closed it with a convincing 96-minute victory at a soldout arena, snapping the Wahine's 32-match home winning streak and undefeated season at 17.
Hawaii (17-1) looked as if it would make it 18 in a row in front of the first sellout crowd since 1996 (10,252 tickets). The stomach flu (Veronica Lima) and back pain (Lily Kahumoku) had two Wahine out of the starting lineup, but Hawaii still jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead.
In those first five minutes, the Cardinal hit negative .333 with no kills. The Wahine were hitting plus .333 with two aces and two blocks.
Just as suddenly, the momentum changed.
"We started off strong and then we let it slip through our fingers,'' said Hawaii freshman setter Jennifer Carey. "Stanford got in their rhythm and we couldn't stop it. It's very disappointing.
"We weren't at the top of our game and when you play Stanford, you have to be. At 7-1, we took a breather and you can't do that. You have to keep the pressure on.''
The Cardinal also took a deep breath at 7-1 and then collectively blew back with gale-force winds. Stanford caught Hawaii at 7-7 and 9-9; the Wahine never scored again in Game 1 as Stanford took advantage of UH's poor passing and an uncharacteristic off-night by senior All-American Heather Bown (8 kills, 9 errors, -037).
"The crowd is intimidating,'' said Stanford senior Kerri Walsh. "Hawaii is a great team. We knew we had to start taking care of the ball on our side of the net.
"We just needed to step back, take a deep breath and regroup.''
The three-time All-American put down her team's first kill and its last. In between, the Cardinal played like the team that has won four national titles in the 1990s and wants to add a fifth right here in less than two months from now.
Walsh (11 kills, 10 blocks) got plenty of help from Freshman of the Year candidate Logan Tom. The 6-foot-2 Tom, the national high school player of the year last season, had 14 kills, 14 digs, hit .333 with four of Stanford's seven aces.
Tom's father Melvyn lives in Kona but the majority of her relatives live on Oahu. They were out in force at the arena last night.
"At first the crowd was getting to me, with my family here and everything,'' said Tom, the only high school player to tour with the U.S. national team this year. "I had to block it out. As a team, we had to look at ourselves and calm down."
The only category the Wahine led the Cardinal was in blocks, 11-9.
"I don't think we lost because we had to start a different lineup,'' said Hawaii coach Dave Shoji. "We lost because we couldn't execute our skills. Even if we were at full strength, we'd lose the match because we didn't pass well, we didn't play well defensively."
STANFORD DEF. HAWAII, 15-9, 15-12, 15-10
Cardinal (17-2)
g k e att pct. bs ba d Walsh 3 11 4 27 .259 1 1 10 Yamasaki 3 6 2 14 .286 0 0 2 Tom 3 14 5 27 .333 0 2 14 Kagawa 3 2 2 7 .000 0 2 5 Sandrik 3 2 1 7 .143 1 0 2 Detmer 3 10 2 17 .471 1 5 0 Conrad 2 5 1 10 .400 0 1 0 Clark 1 2 3 8 -.125 0 1 1 Ivy 3 0 1 1 -1.000 0 0 2 Gregory 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 7 Totals 3 52 21 118 .263 3 12 43Rainbow Wahine (17-1)
g k e att pct. bs ba d Nikolic 2 1 0 4 .250 1 0 3 Carey 3 4 1 8 .375 0 5 7 Sudduth 3 9 2 25 .280 0 1 8 Bown 3 8 9 27 -.037 2 6 7 Roberts 3 3 4 11 -.091 0 0 1 Ilustre 3 5 3 15 .133 1 0 7 Vakasausau 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 4 Kahumoku 2 8 3 17 .294 0 0 0 Lima 2 3 1 9 .222 1 0 2 Lee 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 1 Totals 3 41 23 116 .155 5 12 40Key--g: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct.: hitting percentage; bs: block solos; ba: block assists; d: digs.Aces--Stanford (7): Tom 4, Kagawa 2, Ivy 1. UH (3): Sudduth 2, Nikolic 1. Assists--Stanford (50): Kagawa 44, Walsh 2, Clark 1, Conrad 1, Tom 1, Yamasaki 1. UH (39): Carey 31, Roberts 2, Bown 1, Ilustre 1, Lee 1, Lima 1, Sudduth 1, Vakasausau 1.
A--10,252. T--1:36. Officials--Dan Hironaka, Wayne Lee.
http://uhathletics.hawaii.edu
Ka Leo O Hawaii
