DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Hawaii's Tony Ching and Kimo Tuyay celebrated after winning a point against Loyola-Chicago last night.
Warriors The system may have flickered on and off, but it stayed on enough for the Hawaii volleyball team to pull out its first straight-set win over an opponent in two weeks.
sweep
Ramblers
No. 2 Hawaii plays inconsistently
but beats Loyola-Chicago
in three gamesBy Grace Wen
gwen@starbulletin.comThe second-ranked Warriors played sometimes-inspiring and sometimes-half-hearted volleyball in last night's 93-minute sweep of No. 12 Loyola-Chicago at the Stan Sheriff Center, 30-25, 30-25, 30-22. The Warriors (12-5) mustered what they needed to when they needed it for a non-conference mid-week match and dropped the Ramblers to 10-4.
"That was as smooth as a waffle iron," Hawaii coach Mike Wilton said. "We obviously made a lot of unforced errors. Our focus was in and out. We'd make a hustle play every once in a while. We need to play a lot better.
"It was like blinking lights. On and off, on and off. Costas (Theocharidis) got animated at times. Delano (Thomas) had really effective numbers and Brian (Nordberg) did some good things. The best thing as a team was that we served good at times."
Hawaii had one of its better serving performances, collecting seven aces. Thomas did the most damage from the backline, with four aces. Thomas helped Hawaii at the net too, hitting .750 with 12 kills.
Sporting cornrows instead of his normally unruly hair, setter Kimo Tuyay shook off a shaky start and dished 53 assists. Hawaii seniors Theocharidis (18 kills, .351), Nordberg (seven kills, .500), Eyal Zimet (10 kills, .304, two aces) and Tony Ching (12 kills, one ace) were solid offensively.
"We played alright. We could have played better," Ching said. "We weren't as consistent as we ought to be. Our serves were on, and that's what kept us in the game. We weren't passing very well and siding out as efficiently as we usually do.
"They had a couple runs at us, but we weathered them pretty well. We have to bring our game every night. There were spurts of energy when we needed it, but it wasn't as consistent as when we played Pepperdine."
If Hawaii was inconsistent, Loyola-Chicago didn't notice.
dennis Oda / doda@starBulletin.com
Hawaii's Delano Thomas kept his eyes on the ball during this Loyola-Chicago set.
"That definitely was not our best volleyball," Loyola-Chicago coach Tim O'Brien said. " We didn't play very well. We never really got Hawaii out of system. They were in system all of the night and we weren't in our system. We went to the middle early, but Hawaii just got some serving runs."
Middle blocker Dan Haas finished with a perfect 11 kills in 11 attempts. Unfortunately for the Ramblers, their passing broke down and they were forced to go to he outside more often than they liked. Senior Justin Schnor led the Ramblers with 13 kills.
The Warriors were mechanical and appeared to just go through the motions in Game 1. Hawaii served four aces and got five kills apiece from Zimet and Theocharidis.
The Warriors had leads of 10-7 and 20-15 and actually maintained them. The only play out of the ordinary in Game 1 was a Theocharidis rocket that landed with a loud thud off the chest of Rambler setter Shane Davis to give Hawaii a 25-19 lead.
After the midway point of Game 2, Hawaii and Loyola-Chicago played tug-of-war with the lead. The Ramblers trailed by a point at the media time out but scored three straight off two Hawaii hitting errors and a kill by Dan Kellum to go up 17-15. Hawaii tied the game at 18 when Tuyay and Thomas stuffed Schnor.
The Warriors yanked the lead back for good after a spectacular display of defense that brought most of the quiet crowd of 3,065 to its feet in celebration.
Schnor blasted a ball that Tuyay popped up to the lower bowl railing. Zimet chased the ball down and kicked it over his shoulder. Tuyay dropped to his knees and passed it over the net. The Ramblers couldn't return the ball and went quietly the rest of the game. Hawaii zipped out to a 10-5 lead in Game 3 and never looked back.
The teams play again tomorrow at 7 p.m.
Notes: Freshman Pedro Azenha is back with the Warriors after departing for personal reasons last Friday. He asked for reinstatement on Monday and will be able to practice with the team next week.
RAMBLERS (10-4) Hawaii def. Loyola-Chicago
30-25, 30-25, 30-22
g k e att pct. bs ba d Alesch 3 4 5 11 -.091 0 3 2 Davis 3 0 1 2 -.500 1 3 6 Haas 3 11 0 11 1.000 0 3 1 Shroeder 3 6 2 18 .222 0 4 1 Schnor 3 13 4 35 .257 0 0 5 Kellum 3 4 1 12 .250 0 1 9 Linstroth 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 1 Thuet 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 1 Kloos 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 2 Kryzak 3 1 0 1 1.000 0 0 7 Walwyn 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Totals 3 39 13 90 .289 1 14 35 WARRIORS (12-5)
g k e att pct. bs ba d Tuyay 3 1 0 3 .333 0 2 2 Zimet 3 10 3 23 .304 0 0 5 Theocharidis 3 18 5 37 .351 0 1 2 Ching 3 12 7 25 .200 0 1 14 Nordberg 3 7 2 10 .500 2 2 1 Thomas 3 12 0 16 .750 0 2 3 Muise 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 7 Frederick 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Azenha 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Bender 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Totals 3 60 17 114 .377 2 8 34 Key -- g: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct.: hitting percentage; bs: block solos; ba: block assists; d: digs.
Aces -- LOY (1): Kellum. Hawaii (7): Thomas 4, Zimet 2, Ching.
Assists -- LOY (35): Davis 32, Alesch, Haas, Linstroth. Hawaii (55): Tuyay 53, Theocharidis, Thomas.
T -- 1:33.
Officials -- Wayne Lee, Dan Hironaka
A -- 3,065.
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