Warriors waste Cougars

Hawaii beats BYU in every phase of the game to earn a sweep

When it came to the basics, Hawaii was basically the better team.

And Brigham Young had no answer.

Hawaii   BYU 3 0 Next Up vs. BYU, today

The No. 2 Warriors exorcised all the ghosts of Cougars past, throttling No. 4 Brigham Young 30-14, 30-21, 30-21 at the Stan Sheriff Center. The 92-minute victory, Hawaii's 18th in a row, emphatically ended a six-match losing streak against the Cougars.

A crowd of 4,291 saw Hawaii (22-4, 18-3 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) keep its hopes alive for the MPSF title with its first sweep of BYU since 2002. But, for that to happen, the Warriors would need to beat the Cougars (18-7, 14-5) in tonight's 7 o'clock rematch and have top-ranked UC Irvine lose to UC Santa Barbara.

That's another day. Last night, Hawaii looked like what BYU coach Tom Peterson said earlier in the week: "Probably the best team in the country."

"Nothing they did surprised us," said BYU senior Victor Batista, who has tormented UH the past two seasons. "We knew what they were going to do. Whatever we saw on the videos, whatever our coaches told us they'd do, they did it. We didn't do what we had to do to beat them."

Hawaii's balanced attack again came through. Senior hitter Jose Delgado, the only Warrior with more than one hitting error, finished with a team-high 14 kills. Junior Lauri Hakala added 13 kills and senior Matt Carere put down 11, each with just a single hitting error.

"Tonight, we were ready for BYU," said Carere, whose lone hitting error came late in Game 3. "They're a very talented team and we're expecting a lot more from them tomorrow night.

"The key tonight was we stayed together. We've had letdowns in the past but we decided not to do that. We'll need to be ready again for them, because we know they'll bring their guns."

Game 1 was just embarrassing from the Cougars' standpoint. BYU's Yosleyder Cala put down a monster kill to pull his team to 13-10.

That was the highlight of the opening 23 minutes.

BYU didn't have another kill until Ivan Perez's brought the Cougars to within 29-14. BYU's only other points until then had come on three UH service errors.

It was the fewest points the Cougars had scored all year, easily eclipsing the 20 points in Game 1 at Pepperdine, a match BYU rallied to win in four.

That would not happen last night.

Not when the Warriors had their offense running with such efficiency. Hawaii hit .591 in Game 1, and began pulling away after 15-10 when Carere slammed back two consecutive service overpasses by BYU libero Brian Rowley. That was followed by a kill by Delgado and Brian Beckwith putting down an overpass for a 19-10 lead.

Peterson called his two timeouts within 4 minutes but it didn't get much better as Hawaii closed it out with a 7-4 run.

The Warriors didn't let up, hitting .636 in Game 2. Carere continued an errorless night to that point, putting down all five of his swings.

BYU's biggest lead came at 2-0 in Game 3. Just as they had in the opening two games, Hawaii quickly found separation, breaking away from a 15-10 lead to 29-17.

Hawaii's biggest concern is the health of setter Beckwith, who rolled into a sideline table when trying to prevent Cala's ace that made it 29-20 in Game 3. Beckwith reinjured a knee that has given him problems in the past.

"We'll know more in the morning how Brian is," UH coach Mike Wilton said. "It was an awkward play."