Warriors get
back to business
tomorrow vs. TritonsAfter a long layoff, the Hawaii volleyball
team faces a surprising UC San Diego team
Mike Wilton has his surfboard hanging from the ceiling of his office. It's been collecting plenty of dust lately; the coach for the No. 4 Hawaii volleyball team doesn't have time to hit the waves.
UH vs. UCSD
When: Tomorrow and Friday, 7 p.m.Where: Stan Sheriff Center
Radio/TV: Live both nights, KKEA (1420-AM) and KFVE-TV (Ch. 5)
Series: UH leads, 29-0.
Tickets: Lower bowl--$12 (adult), $3 (super rooter). Upper bowl--$9 (adult), $8 (senior), $3 (student)
The dust has also been collecting on the Warriors, who have not played a match since falling at UC Santa Barbara in five back on Jan. 16. Hawaii had one last practice today to get back into game shape as the team prepared for this week's series with surprising UC San Diego.
The unranked Tritons stunned No. 6 Stanford last Saturday, 30-27, 23-30, 33-31, 30-22, in La Jolla, Calif. The Tritons, with just nine victories over 11-plus seasons in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, have already tied their best conference effort with two wins this season.
"They are very good," Wilton said. "They beat Stanford and USC and lost a close one to UOP that Ron (Larsen, head coach) felt they should have won.
"They've got a 6-foot-6 setter (junior Nate Jones) and good, active middles (6-5 senior Andy Rupp and 6-4 junior Kevin Keyser), two good left-side hitters (6-4 junior Adam Toren and 6-4 sophomore Jeff Urton) and a left-handed senior opposite (6-4 Jim Waller) who is a very good player."
The very balanced Tritons had five players in double-figure kills in the win over the Cardinal, led by Urton's 16. Keyser had 11 kills and was in on 10 blocks.
Last night, Urton put down a team-high 15 kills and the Tritons needed just 100 minutes to top Princeton 31-29, 30-16, 28-30, 30-21. UCSD had 16.5 blocks, with Rupp in on eight; Toren had three of the team's nine aces.
The Warriors are more than ready to get back on the court against someone other than themselves. They expect to have sophomore opposite Pedro Azenha back in the lineup against the Tritons and -- at least as of yesterday -- sophomore Dio Dante had replaced sophomore Mauli'a LaBarre in the middle.
Azenha missed the road trip to UCSB with a severe ankle sprain.
"(But) he's well enough to play and he's back in (the starting lineup)," Wilton said. "Matt Bender (who replaced Azenha) has been playing so great, too.
"We keep detailed data in practice and we score it out. You put up some numbers, you get to play."
Wilton has the luxury of depth and height to experiment. Freshman Brian Beckwith continued to hold down the setter's job, but the return of senior Kimo Tuyay (ankle injury) will give Hawaii another, and experienced, offensive look.
"We've been practicing pretty hard and we're ready to go," senior middle Josh Stanhiser said. "What hurt us at UCSB was things just weren't clicking. But we have Pedro back and we've gotten more 'oneness' since UCSB."
Said associate head coach Tino Reyes: "We're still a work in progress. I think everything has gotten better since we last played. We've been working a lot on defensive stuff. We can sideout enough, but we haven't defended well enough to win the games we lost."
Both of Hawaii's losses have come in five, in the season-opener to Penn State and its last outing at UCSB.
"We didn't play very well at Santa Barbara," Wilton said. "It was kind of how we did against Penn State. We had the fortitude to stay in those matches, make real nice comebacks, but came up a little short at the end.
"The key for us is to get more and more consistent. We've had a couple of rotations that weren't as powerful as the other ones and we're trying to shore that up. I really like this team; they get after it every day in practice. They've just got to get a little better."
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