Sidelines
UH brings fire to
soar past PepperdineWE saw Hawaii's personalities last night. We saw them both. We saw them all, up and down, good and bad. The whole schizophrenic UH men's volleyball season in a nutshell.
A curious case study, this patient.
There they were.
Stuffed.
Rejected.
Flat-footed.
A step late. Two.
Clapping, attempting to summon passion, attempting to start up something, anything, but to no avail.
Troubled faces, frustrated, desperate, clouded, blank.
There was Pepperdine, a team of slim 6-7 lookalikes. The nation's No. 1 squad. The consistent winners. The guys in the way. The volleyball team straight from central casting.
The guys who came from everywhere to be California Boys.
And the balls dropped in all the wrong places for UH, and the serves went wide, one even bouncing over the VIP seating behind the court and off into the tunnel and quite possibly out into the street.
When things are bad, they're bad.
But there was the good, too, just as quickly. Out of nowhere, the other personality would show up, just to remind us that these were the national champs.
And it was amazing to behold.
Then, the kills were incredibly loud, and then the arena was earsplitting.
There was nothing Pepperdine could do to stop it. That's how good these guys were.
"That's volleyball," UH setter Kimo Tuyay said. "Volleyball's a game of momentum."
You could watch this transformation taking place. There was emotion, inspiration, from Tony Ching, and the guy with the Saran Wrap on his head, Brian Nordberg.
Eyal Zimet lit up like a sunburst. Tuyay, nodding his head like a rooster with a '70s-era Bill Walton haircut. And even Costas Theocharidis, he of the furrowed brow and the popping vein, the determined power frown LaVell Edwards would be proud of, cracked a smile once, just once. I saw it.
And there was Delano Thomas, with a great dig on Aloha Ball of Game Two, a great dig. He stayed there, on the floor, and exploded. The ball was still on its way up as he celebrated, there would be two more touches to go before UH won the set, but he already knew. He just KNEW. And the emotion poured out of him.
It was like a force of nature, this personality.
Soaring.
These were the national champs.
"That's what we need to do," Tuyay said afterward, smiling, sweating, knowing all. "We need the fire. We need the fire, we need the streak."
That was Game Four, as UH rolled, the fire, the streak, the good personality, the national champs. It was something incredible to see.
This patient is a mystery, this dual personality, this team of Jekylls and Hydes. On this night they were both, but unbeatable in the end.
"We've got to bring that fire out of us," Tuyay said again. "It just has to come out naturally."
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com