[ WARRIOR VOLLEYBALL ]
Thomas serves up
icing for Warriors
Service aces are not the cake in volleyball. They are the icing.
Or, at least to Delano Thomas, they are the pineapple rings. That's what tops Thomas' favorite dessert: pineapple upside down cake.
Thomas tops the Warriors in aces this season with 15, ranking him second nationally in aces per game.
MPSF volleyball
Who: No. 2 Hawaii (6-2, 3-1) at No. 9 Stanford (5-7, 3-5).When: Tomorrow and Saturday, 5 p.m. HST.
Radio: Live, KKEA (1420-AM).
TV: None.
Internet: www.kkea1420AM.com
Series: Hawaii leads 26-24.
Last meeting: Stanford won 28-30, 25-30, 30-27, 30-27, 15-8 in Honolulu, Jan. 24, 2003.
The junior outside hitter also has the most service errors (45) which, in rally scoring, translates into automatic points for the opponent.
That's OK with Hawaii head coach Mike Wilton. Wilton doesn't keep track of aces ... he keeps track of how many points are scored when a player is back on the service line.
In that category, Thomas is also the team leader. The Warriors score 48 percent of the time that Thomas serves. "I consider 35 percent good," Wilton said as his team prepared to leave today for matches at Stanford and Pacific.
"That's the bottom line," Wilton added. "I know a lot of people say, 'Oh, my gosh, how can a guy miss nine serves in a match?' Even though Delano missed nine serves (last Thursday against Ball State), we still scored at a 42 percent rate. I'll take that any day.
"Our philosophy is what we call a 'three-point pass.' We take away their middle (attack), make them more predictable offensively. If you get an ace, then OK, thank you, serve another. What I'm interested in is who serves the most. Whoever does that is our best server."
That would be the low-key Thomas.
"All I want to do with my serve is to hit it hard," he said. "I know my errors are high, but I'm still 48 percent. I didn't know about being No. 2 (nationally). I don't go for aces, I go for (the other team making) bad passes, overpasses. What's important is getting the point."
The point of this road trip, for Thomas, is to have a successful homecoming.
The only Warrior from Northern California is expecting a number of family and friends to make the drive from his hometown of Sacramento to Palo Alto for the Stanford matches tomorrow and Saturday, and to Stockton next Monday and Tuesday.
"I'm excited about the trip," Thomas said. "I'll have a lot of names on the pass list. And I'm going to have a chance to go home and be with my mom (Sunday). That adds to the trip.
"We are taking this one game at a time. We've got to keep winning."
Hawaii (6-2, 3-1) has won its last four. The Warriors' only conference loss came on their last road trip, when dropping the second match at UC Santa Barbara.
Stanford (5-7, 3-5) has lost its last three and five of its last six. The Cardinal fell to Southern California last Thursday, the Trojans' first MPSF win this season.
"But they've proven on any given night, they can be really good," Wilton said. "Stanford beat UCLA (the top-ranked Bruins' only loss). And then they lose to SC ...
"They've got a good setter (6-foot-5 junior Kevin Hansen) who's a real fiery competitive kind of guy."
The Cardinal are very young this season, with no seniors and four juniors. They are tall -- averaging 6-5 -- but still experimenting with a lineup.
In Saturday's loss at Pepperdine, Stanford got 15 kills from 6-4 sophomore Ben Reddy and 12 from 6-9 Patrick Bomhack, an opposite who was recruited as a setter.
"UOP gave us a hard time last year and they're good this year," Wilton said. "What I'm trying to preach is that every day, every practice, every game is an opportunity to get better. We still have a big learning curve in front of us and we just want to keep getting better."
