Mauli'a La Barre and Lauri Hakala of Hawaii went up for a block against USC last night.
Warriors return tough
Hawaii comes off a bye week
showing little rust against USC
Pedro Azenha missed celebrating Carnival last week in his native Brazil. Last night, his Hawaii volleyball teammates threw him a belated block party.
The third-ranked Warriors had 17.5 blocks -- 10 by Mauli'a LaBarre -- and Azenha put down 19 kills to subdue Southern California for the ninth straight meeting. Hawaii shook off the rust from the bye week to claim a 28-30, 31-29, 30-19, 32-34, 15-11 victory at the Stan Sheriff Center in 2 hours and 44 minutes.
A turnstile crowd of 2,394 (3,833 tickets) saw Hawaii (9-1, 7-0) win its eighth in a row and remain the only undefeated team in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. USC fell to 4-11 and 1-7.
The two teams meet again at 7 tonight.
"I think we let ourselves play at their level, like we did against Stanford," said Azenha, who also had a team-high 10 digs. "I don't think we played to our potential, we had a really weak match. But sometimes that happens and we have to do a better job tomorrow."
The rematch will be another reunion between Azenha and his former Brazilian national team roommate, Joao Grangeiro, who had 18 kills and 12 digs last night and passed 41 balls perfectly.
The last time Grangeiro was here, he was on vacation. Last night was anything but one, as the Trojans lost a five-game match for the third time this season, another one they thought they should have won.
"It comes down to details, the little mistakes we shouldn't have done," Grangeiro said. "We kept fighting but we need to do things better. We played defense better than we have, we dug a lot of balls, and blocked better than we have.
"Maybe tomorrow we'll be a little bit more lucky."
This was also the third five-game match for Hawaii, but the Warriors have come away winners all three times.
"At the end, we were a little more experienced," said Lauri Hakala, who came off the bench in Game 1 to finish with 10 kills. "At the end, we served well and didn't make the individual mistakes like we did in the fourth game.
"And our Brazilian did better. We played well as a team at the end, but Pedro is the one who carried us. He gets a lot of credit, but he doesn't get enough."
It was a team effort by UH at the end of Game 5 that won it. Neither team had more than a one-point lead until late.
A kill by LaBarre and a double block by Brian Beckwith and Dio Dante off Juan Figueroa pushed Hawaii to a 12-10 lead.
Bender's flying dig on the back line flew back over the net, hitting USC setter J.T. Gilmour for a 13-10 margin. Figueroa's 22nd and final kill made it 13-11, but the Warriors closed it out on Azenha's last kill and a mis-hit by Blake Tippett.
LaBarre added 10 kills for Hawaii. Tippett had 18 kills and Chris McKniff 10 for USC.
"We just missed too many serves," said Trojan coach Turhan Douglas, noting his team's 25 missed serves to Hawaii's 15. "We should have won Game 2, but we had too many unforced errors. Obviously we need to serve better and cut down on hitting errors tomorrow."
The Trojans pulled out Game 1 despite 10 service errors. USC got hot from the back line when it counted, with Figueroa nailing both of his aces during a 3-0 run that lifted his team from a 25-25 tie to a 28-25 lead.
The Warriors held off two game points to close to 29-28 only to have Tippett put down his sixth kill to end it.
Hawaii led for most of Game 2 only to have USC again get hot at the end, taking a 28-27 lead on another kill by Tippett. A serving error and a kill by Bender gave the Warriors game-point at 29-28, but the Trojans wouldn't go away.
McKniff, a 6-foot-10 middle, connected on a set from J.T. Gilmour for a 29-all tie. The Warriors tied the match at 1-1 via Bender's 10th kill and a hitting error by Grangeiro.
Hawaii had four of its stuffs, and Azenha six of his kills, in a Game 3 romp. The Warriors hit .524 to the Trojans' .121.
USC fought back ... hard. The Trojans had two of their four blocks in Game 4 come at a crucial time, with two consecutive stuffs lifting USC to what would be the first of its five game points.
The teams traded sideouts, with LaBarre's kill tying it for the last time at 32. A net violation gave the Trojans another shot a forcing Game 5 and it ended when it was ruled that that Hawaii's block of Grangeiro landed out.
Hawaii def. USC
28-30, 31-29, 30-19, 32-34, 15-11
Trojans (3-11, 1-7 MPSF) Odenthal 5 25 6 56 .339 2 3 13 g k e att pct. bs ba d Gilmour 5 3 1 6 .333 0 2 7 Tippett 5 18 15 46 .065 1 4 5 Vernon 5 9 4 15 .333 0 5 0 Figueroa 5 22 7 41 .366 0 1 7 Grangeiro 5 18 10 41 .195 1 1 12 McKniff 5 10 5 28 .179 0 3 3 Barron 4 0 0 0 .000 0 0 1 Burden 5 0 0 0 .000 0 0 13 Mosko 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Totals 5 80 42 177 .215 2 16 48 Warriors (9-1, 7-0 MPSF) g k e att pct. bs ba d Delgado 1 0 1 4 -.250 0 0 0 Beckwith 5 3 1 5 .400 1 3 5 Azenha 5 19 5 41 .341 2 3 10 Bender 5 17 4 35 .371 0 4 8 La Barre 5 10 4 21 .286 2 8 2 Dante 5 5 4 13 .077 0 3 3 Klinger 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Hakala 5 10 2 21 .381 1 2 5 Reft 5 0 0 0 .000 0 0 9 Schkud 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Rasay 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 Totals 5 64 21 140 .307 6 23 42 Key -- g: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct.: hitting percentage; bs: block solos; ba: block assists; d: digs.
Aces -- USC (7): Tippett 2, Figueroa 2, Grangeiro 2, Gilmour. Hawaii (1): Azenha. Assists -- USC (75): Gilmour 71, Figueroa 2, Grangeiro 2. Hawaii (60): Beckwith 53, Hakala 2, Delgado, Azenha, LaBarre, Dante, Reft.
T -- 2:44. Officials -- Dan Hironaka, Dickson Chun. A -- 2,394.
MPSF standings
Conference Overall W L Pct. W L Hawaii 7 0 1.000 9 1 UCLA 9 1 .900 13 1 Pepperdine 9 1 .900 9 1 Long Beach State 7 3 .700 9 4 UCSB 6 4 .600 6 7 Pacific 3 4 .429 9 6 BYU 2 4 .333 7 6 UC Irvine 3 6 .333 5 9 CS Northridge 3 7 .300 6 8 Stanford 3 7 .300 4 9 USC 1 7 .125 3 11 UC San Diego 0 9 .000 0 10 Wednesday's result
Long Beach State def. CS Northridge, 30-21, 30-24, 30-27
Yesterday's results
Hawaii def. USC, 28-30, 31-29, 30-19, 32-34, 15-11
UCLA def. Stanford, 30-21, 30-20, 31-33, 30-26
Today's matches
USC at Hawaii, 7 p.m., Stan Sheriff Center
CSU Northridge at UC San Diego
Pacific at UC Irvine
UC Santa Barbara at Long Beach State
Tomorrow's matches
Pacific at UCLA
Stanford at UC Irvine
UC Santa Barbara at UC San Diego
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Brigham Young
passes on WiltonMike Wilton's heart has long been in Hawaii.
It's where he met his wife. It's where he developed as a collegiate player. It's where he has made his home nearly half his life.
And it's where, for the foreseeable future, he will remain as the Hawaii volleyball coach.
Yesterday, Brigham Young announced it had hired its new women's volleyball coach from within the staff. Wilton was relieved he didn't have to choose between family and coaching the Warriors.
"First of all, there was no job offer," said Wilton, who flew to Provo, Utah, last week to discuss the BYU vacancy. "It never came down to having to make a decision. It was going to be hard (if an offer had been made), and I could have been happy coaching volleyball at either place.
"For family reasons, the move to the mainland would have made all kinds of sense. But I knew it would have been real hard to give up being here and I'm grateful in that sense that I didn't have to cross that bridge. The bottom line is I'm happy to be here.
"As far as a volleyball decision, I'm glad it turned out this way," said Wilton's son Aaron, who serves as an assistant to his father. "I know he wants to coach here."
The new Cougar women's coach is Jason Watson, who has served as interim head coach since Jan. 28, when the school announced that Karen Lamb would no longer be coaching the team. Watson had been an assistant for Lamb since her first season in 2002.
Wilton's current contract runs through May 31. His system has helped create two national players of the year, Yuval Katz (1996) and Costas Theocharidis (2001), 14 All-Americans and 25 all-conference athletes. The Warriors have led the country in attendance ever since their first season in the Stan Sheriff Center (1995).
"We knew all along that this wasn't an issue about us, about the team," UH setter Brian Beckwith. "It was always about family coming first. We're glad he's staying."
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