UH's Dio Dante hit past Stanford's Chris Ahlfeldt during the Warriors' sweep of the Cardinal last night at the Stan Sheriff Center.
Warriors sweep
Hawaii hammers Stanford,
outhitting and outblocking the
Cardinal to improve to 8-1
This was the stuff that wins are made of. Literally.
No. 3 Hawaii spotted No. 10 Stanford a 2-0 edge in blocks early in Game 1 before coming back with 12 stuffs en route to a 30-21, 30-26, 30-23 victory last night at the Stan Sheriff Center. Sophomore middle Dio Dante was in on six blocks and three teammates had four each as the Warriors remained undefeated in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation at 6-0, 8-1 overall.
Hawaii needed just 100 minutes to win its sixth straight and had plenty of time to hit the Punahou School Carnival for malasadas. The Warriors have an extended break before hosting USC on Feb. 17-18.
Hawaii hit .351 for the match to Stanford's .132. Pedro Azenha again led the way with 17 kills, hitting .520; at one point, the senior hitter had 11 kills in 13 swings (.846) with no errors in helping his team to a 22-12 lead in Game 3.
Helping the Warriors' success was Jose Delgado getting free for eight kills, giving setter Brian Beckwith another effective option. Beckwith said he made a conscious decision to get Delgado the ball more.
"We need to get his numbers up, not just tonight but for future matches, so that he's a threat when teams look at us," Beckwith said.
"I've been struggling to find a rhythm," Delgado said. "I've tried to help out the team in other ways, such as serving and passing, but today I finally found my (hitting) rhythm.
"Brian did a good job. We pretty much had one-on-ones on the outside all night."
It was a disappointing end to the trip for the Cardinal (3-8, 2-6). Stanford felt that, after pushing it to five games on Thursday, an upset was in reach.
"We were expecting to come out a little better tonight," Stanford senior setter Kevin Hansen said. "Hawaii played pretty well, better than (Thursday). We couldn't match the intensity.
"It's a game of momentum. We couldn't carry it over to tonight. They've got a lot of weapons and it's pretty difficult to stop every one of them."
The Cardinal had trouble stopping the Warriors' middle attack. Maulia La Barre had 11 kills and Dante finished with five in hitting .500.
Stanford's Kevin Hansen tried to block a kill attempt by Hawaii's Jose Delgado last night.
Conversely, the Warriors weren't fooled often by the Cardinal offense. Hawaii had as many blocks in the sweep as they did in five games Thursday.
"They made good adjustments from last night," Hansen said. "They've got some big blockers and that's the advantage of playing a team on back-to-back nights.
"That's what we need to learn to do, make the adjustment. We need to find that mental toughness."
Focus was the key, according to Beckwith.
"The biggest adjustment individually for me was to keep the mental focus and not dwell on mistakes," he said. "Tonight, we kept going on play after play. Between Games 2 and 3, it was, 'Don't let down.' They proved last night they could come back.
"Tonight, this match was up to us, whether we wanted to beat ourselves. We showed that the little break doesn't matter."
Much like Thursday, the teams were even early in Games 1 and 2 before Hawaii again pulled away.
Hawaii's Pedro Azenha dropped a kill past a block attempt by Stanford's David Vogel and Chris Ahlfeldt.
The Cardinal got as close as 27-21 before the Warriors stuffed David Vogel twice. Ben Reddy's hitting error ended it.
It took a while for Hawaii to subdue the Stanford threat in Game 2. Azenha's 10th kill broke a 21-21 deadlock and the Warriors then used a 5-1 spurt to take control at 27-25.
Bender and Dante blocked William Clayton to give Hawaii a 2-0 lead going into the locker room. Unlike Thursday, the Cardinal would not rally. Hawaii dominated.
The Warriors broke away from a 6-6 tie with seven straight points. Azenha served for another four as Hawaii jumped out to an 18-7 lead.
It was 22-12 before Stanford decided it would not suffer its worst single-game defeat of the season. The Cardinal had scored just 16 in a loss to Cal State Northridge; they used an 8-3 run to get it to 25-20.
They'd get no closer.
Craig Buell led Stanford with nine kills.
Thomas gone: Hawaii coach Mike Wilton said that he spoke with senior middle blocker Delano Thomas yesterday and confirmed that the All-American is no longer in school.
Thomas had been sitting out this semester to make up academics from the fall. The 6-foot-8 Thomas has a redshirt year but would have to make enough progress toward a degree this summer in order to return next season.
Wilton said that the U.S. national team has an interest in Thomas and that may be where his volleyball career continues.
MPSF standings
Conference Overall W L Pct. W L Hawaii 6 0 1.000 8 1 UCLA 6 1 .857 10 1 Pepperdine 6 1 .857 6 1 Long Beach State 5 2 .714 7 3 UCSB 5 3 .625 5 6 Pacific 3 3 .500 7 4 BYU 2 2 .500 6 3 CS Northridge 3 5 .375 5 6 UC Irvine 2 5 .285 4 8 Stanford 2 6 .250 3 8 USC 1 6 .143 2 8 UC San Diego 0 7 .000 0 8 Yesterday
Hawaii def. Stanford, 30-21, 30-26, 30-23
Pepperdine def. USC, 30-25, 30-19, 30-23
Cal State Northridge def. UC Irvine, 30-18, 30-23, 29-31, 26-30, 20-18
UCLA def. UC Santa Barbara, 30-20, 30-25, 28-30, 22-30, 15-12
Long Beach State def. UC San Diego, 30-22, 30-23, 30-23
Pacific def. Lewis, 35-33, 24-30, 30-28, 22-30, 20-18
BYU def. Ball State, 30-22, 30-27, 30-23
Today
Pacific vs. Loyola-Chicago at Romeoville, Ill.
BYU vs. Penn State at Springfield, Mass
Hawaii def. Stanford
30-21, 30-26, 30-23
Cardinal (3-8, 2-6 MPSF) g k e att pct. bs ba d Buell 3 9 1 17 .471 0 0 0 Ahlfeldt 3 6 3 17 .176 0 3 1 Vogel 3 7 6 19 .053 1 2 7 Ceran 3 5 6 17 -.059 0 0 3 Reddy 3 6 6 18 .000 0 1 5 Hansen 3 4 0 6 .667 0 0 7 Manov 1 4 1 6 .500 0 0 2 Clayton 2 0 4 6 -.667 0 1 2 Lindberg 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 4 Totals 3 41 27 106 .132 1 7 31 Warriors (8-1, 6-0 MPSF) g k e att pct. bs ba d Delgado 3 8 4 19 .211 0 1 6 Beckwith 3 2 0 4 .500 1 3 9 Azenha 3 17 4 25 .520 0 2 5 Bender 3 4 3 12 .083 1 3 4 La Barre 3 11 3 25 .320 1 3 0 Dante 3 5 0 10 .500 0 6 0 Hakala 1 1 0 2 .500 0 0 0 Reft 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 5 Schkud 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Rasay 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Totals 3 48 14 97 .351 3 18 29 Key -- g: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct.: hitting percentage; bs: block solos; ba: block assists; d: digs.
Aces -- Stanford (2): Vogel, Hansen. Hawaii (5): Delgado, Beckwith, Azenha, Bender, Dante. Assists -- Stanford (38): Hansen 32, Ahlfeldt 3, Vogel 2, Buell. Hawaii (45): Beckwith 39, Bender 2, Reft 2, Delgado, La Barre.
T -- 1:40. Officials -- Wayne Lee, Ernie Ho. A -- 3,016.
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