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Friday, February 9, 2001

Matadors
were no match
for Warriors

Theocharidis and Wilton
warn the team against a
letdown in tomorrow
night's rematch

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By Pat Bigold
Star-Bulletin

Costas Theocharidis was in no mood for celebrating after the Hawaii men's volleyball team swept Cal State Northridge last night.

The 30-25, 30-18, 30-19 victory came in front of 2,855 fans, the smallest crowd of the season for the No. 7 Warriors (7-2, 3-1 MPSF) at the Stan Sheriff Center.

That bothered the sophomore All-American outside hitter from Greece.

"We have to start playing really, really well," said Theocharidis, who was back in double-digit kills (14) for the first time in three matches.

"We've already lost one (conference match) here and we can't lose another. Now we start losing the crowd a little bit. Maybe they lost the faith they had in us."

Theocharidis said in a stern voice that if the Warriors lose again at home, he'll be "really, really angry."

Instead of talking about the win, he wanted to look ahead to tomorrow night's rematch with the No. 13 Matadors (3-7, 0-5 MPSF).

Theocharidis warned against the same letdown the Warriors had in their rematch with UC-Santa Barbara last week.

Hawaii blitzed the Gauchos in an 88-minute straight-set win on Jan. 31 in the first of a two-match series, and then dropped the second in four games on Feb. 2.

Last night's victory was only two minutes longer than the blowout of the Gauchos and almost as lopsided.

The Warriors outhit the Matadors, .427 to .049, outblocked them, 12.5 to 4, had 10 service aces to their 4 and committed 10 attack errors to their 29.

"That was probably one of the worst matches we've played," said Matadors coach Jeff Campbell.

"The key is to build up a head of steam going into Saturday night," said Hawaii coach Mike Wilton, who echoed Theocharidis' concern about another home series split.

"We were pretty much able to do what we wanted to do in the middle," said senior middle blocker Brenton Davis.

Davis hit a match-high .667 with eight kills and six block assists.

Four block assists came in combination with sophomore Tony Ching, starting in place of senior Torry Tukuafu.

"We were able to get a lot of blocks because we served so well," said Davis.

"They became really predictable. We knew they had two guns on the outside, so we were able to hone in on them."

Davis was referring to Matadors' attack leader Joe Nargi, who had a match-high 18 kills but committed nine errors and hit only .273, and 6-foot-10 Eckhard Walter, who was held to six kills and hit minus-.100.

"We knew what their strengths were and we were just able to take that away from them," said Davis.

Libero Vernon Podlewski had another outstanding night with nine digs. Setter Kimo Tuyay had three aces while middle blocker Dejan Miladinovic and outside hitter Eyal Zimet had two each.

Wilton praised the effort put in by Theocharidis. "He had an expanded role this time," he said. "We had him shouldering a large portion of the back-row hitting, too."

Wilton said he was pleased with Ching's seven-kill performance, but didn't believe the Kamehameha product was set well enough.

"He will be the next time," he said. "Tony wasn't able to deliver a lot of heat to his spikes like we know he's capable of."

Wilton said he wanted to give Ching a chance to play a full match to reward him for his outstanding role in relief this season.

"To be honest, Torry has been struggling with his hitting on the right side," said Wilton. "Tony's been playing well enough to deserve a shot. Torry's not done by a longshot, but Tony's doing a little better job right now."

Hawaii def. CSN, 30-25, 30-18, 30-19

Matadors (3-7 overall, 0-5 MPSF)

	g	k	e	att	pct.	bs	ba	d
Baxter	3	1	1	2	.000	1	1	3
Ozkaya	3	7	7	18	.000	1	1	4
Douglas	3	0	2	4	-.500	0	1	0
Denlhan	3	0	1	3	-.333	0	0	0
Walter	3	6	8	20	-.100	0	0	5
Nargi	3	18	9	33	.273	0	0	1
White	3	0	0	0	.000	0	0	0
Horn	3	1	1	2	.000	0	1	0
English	3	0	0	0	.000	0	0	5
Totals	3	33	29	82	.049	2	4	18

Warriors (7-2 overall, 3-1 MPSF)

	g	k	e	att	pct.	bs	ba	d
Miladinovic	3	6	0	12	.500	1	5	0
Tuyay	3	2	0	2	1.000	0	2	2
Zimet	3	5	3	9	.222	0	1	2
Theocharidis	3	14	3	21	.524	0	4	3
Davis	3	8	0	12	.667	0	6	0
Podlewski	3	0	0	0	.000	0	0	9
Ching	3	7	4	19	.158	0	5	1
Totals	3	42	10	75	.427	1	23	17

Key--g: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct.: hitting percentage; bs: block solos; ba: block assists; d: digs. Aces--CSN (4): Ozkaya 2, Eckhard 2. UH (10): Tuyay 3, Miladinovic 2, Zimet 2, Theocharidis 1, Davis 1, Ching 1. Assists--CSN (32): Baxter 30, Eckhard 1, Nargi 1. UH (40): Tuyay 36, Miladinovic 1, Theocharidis 1, Davis 1, Podlewski 1.

T-1:30 Officials: Wayne Lee, Dan Hironaka.

Attendance: 2,855.

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UH Athletics
Ka Leo O Hawaii