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WARRIOR VOLLEYBALL


art
FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Jose Delgado of Hawaii hit against Alberta's Mac Kucharski and Dallas Soonias during yesterday's match.


Alberta finishes sweep
of Hawaii

The Canadian team defeats UH
for the second time this week

It was one New Year's Eve block party that the Warriors volleyball team did not enjoy.

The Warriors were roofed 12.5 times by Alberta yesterday afternoon at the Stan Sheriff Center, losing an exhibition against the Golden Bears 30-26, 30-22, 30-23.

The combination of being outblocked 12.5-2 and making 18 service errors gave Hawaii little chance to gather any momentum against the top-ranked Canadian college team. After 89 minutes, the Warriors were more than ready to say aloha to 2004 and think about next week's season-opening Outrigger Hotels Invitational.

"We see a lot of good things from this and, hopefully, for the Outrigger, we'll keep getting better," said UH left-side hitter Jose Delgado. "We're still kind of rusty after only a couple days of practices. We're still trying to get into the game.

"We know we have to work on a lot of stuff, especially serving and passing. Today was hard. They had a big block and it's hard when you know you have 6-foot-8 and 6-foot-9 guys waiting for you."

The 6-3 Delgado ended up with nine kills and hit .000. Hawaii's lack of an effective left-front attack was painfully obvious; the Warriors were literally hurting.

Matt Bender was out (bursitis in his hitting shoulder), as was Lauri Hakala (sprained ankle). Matt Carere was not at full strength (back spasms) and finished hitting negative .125 with just three kills.

The work horse was again senior opposite Pedro Azenha, who had 31 kills in Wednesday's loss. Yesterday, Azenha had a match-high 22 kills, hitting .400 in 40 attempts.

"Pedro had a great match; he had too much of a load to carry," UH coach Mike Wilton said. "We absolutely have to do something at left-front. We're so far away from the Mendoza Line, we can't even see it.

"Poor Carere played on guts tonight. He tweaked his back again, but we had no one to put in. We were running out of bodies."

At one point, the Warriors had Eric Kalima -- who started Wednesday's match as the libero -- playing in the back row to give Carere a rest.

The Warriors' woes aside, Alberta was just bigger and better. The Bears are 6-0 against U.S. teams in the past five weeks.

Yesterday, they tweaked their starting lineup to put a taller and younger team on the court. It included 6-5 Alex Gaumont Casias, 6-6 Mac Kucharski and 6-8 Dallas Soonias.

Kucharski was in on eight blocks, while Soonias had five to go with his 13 kills. The anchor again was hitter Nicholas Cundy, who added 12 kills, down from his team-high 30 Wednesday.

"We had a younger crew out there, but the guys were turning around balls and putting them away consistently," Alberta setter Brock Davidiuk said. "Defensively our rhythm was good.

"This past week has been good for us. We were better on defense and in our scrambling, making something out of the trash balls."

Alberta's transition game was impressive, as was its defense. The Bears finished with a 34-22 edge in digs.

Hawaii was in every game, but every time the Warriors tried to string together some points, it seemed they'd commit a service error. It was 19-19 in Game 3 when Kalima served long; the next time the Warriors got the ball back, they were down 27-20.

"It's such a morale-killer," said Maulia La Barre, one of four UH players with three errors. "You block a ball then go back and serve it out. It kills momentum. If we keep it in, we keep it going.

"Alberta's a great team. They're No. 1 in their league in blocking for a reason. This is a good gauge to see the things we need to work on."

Notes: The turnstile crowd appeared larger than the official total of 939 but well below the tickets-issued number of 3,569. It is believed to be the smallest crowd for a men's volleyball match since the team moved to the Sheriff Center in 1995 ... Next week's Outrigger Hotels Invitational opens Wednesday with Lewis playing defending NCAA champion BYU followed by Penn State against Hawaii. The first match on all three nights begins at 4 p.m., an hour earlier than in the past ... Bender is expected back for next week's tournament. Hakala may be out for another week.


Alberta def. Hawaii

30-26, 30-22, 30-23

Golden Bears

g k e att pct. bs ba d
Cundy 3 12 3 22 .409 0 2 5
Kaminski 3 5 0 12 .417 1 2 1
Davidiuk 3 0 1 3 -.333 0 1 5
Kucharski 3 5 0 9 .556 1 7 1
Soonias 3 13 4 25 .360 0 5 1
Gaumont Casias 3 8 2 17 .353 1 2 5
Wong 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 1
Schulha 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 2
Hatch 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 13
Totals 3 43 10 88 .375 3 19 34

Warriors

g k e att pct. bs ba d
Delgado 3 9 9 24 .000 0 0 4
Carere 3 3 5 16 -.125 0 1 1
Beckwith 3 0 1 4 -.250 0 1 4
Azenha 3 22 6 40 .400 0 0 3
Schkud 1 1 0 3 .333 0 1 0
La Barre 3 9 2 19 .368 0 0 1
Kalima 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0
Reft 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 9
Dante 2 1 1 5 .000 0 1 0
Totals 3 45 24 111 .189 0 4 22

Key -- g: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct.: hitting percentage; bs: block solos; ba: block assists; d: digs.
Aces -- Alberta (4): Cundy 2, Soonias, Gaumont Casias. Hawaii (3): Azenha, La Barre, Dante. Assists -- Alberta (42): Davidiuk 38, Cundy 2, Soonias, Gaumont Casias. Hawaii (45): Beckwith 43, Schkud, Reft.
T -- 1:29. Officials -- Ernest Ho, Dan Hironaka. A -- 936.



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