Warriors take a step back against Loyola-Chicago

No. 3 Hawaii is stunned on its home floor when it meets a team with a bigger block

The work-in-progess team continues to make progress.

Last night, it wasn't enough.

Loyola-Chi.    Hawaii 3 2 Next Up vs. Penn State today

No. 13 Loyola-Chicago stunned No. 3 Hawaii 30-23, 30-32, 28-30, 31-29, 15-7 in the second match of the 13th Outrigger Hotels Invitational. A Stan Sheriff Center turnstile crowd of 1,963 (3,584 tickets) saw left-handed junior opposite Ian Anderson put down 23 kills to lead the Ramblers (4-1) over the Warriors (2-3) after 2 hours and 31 minutes.

"It was a tough loss," Hawaii senior libero Eric Kalima said. "We had a big lead in Game 4 (19-11). We just couldn't keep them down on the ground. We let them back into the game with errors. You cannot do that against a good team like Loyola.

"We need to learn from our mistakes and forget this loss. Tomorrow is a new day. We need to come out hard."

The Warriors will try to regroup against Penn State (1-2) in tonight's second match at 7. The ninth-ranked Nittany Lions ran into an impressive Brigham Young team in last night's opener, falling to the second-ranked Cougars 30-22, 30-23, 30-18.

BYU (7-0) takes on Loyola-Chicago (3-2) in today's first match at 4 p.m.

"Life is full of disappointments and this is certainly one of them," Warriors coach Mike Wilton said after seeing his team's seven-match winning streak over Loyola snapped. "The longer the match went, the more their confidence level went up.

"We should all free pretty crummy about this, but tomorrow is another day."

Senior middle James Grunst added 16 kills and was in on six blocks as the Ramblers outblocked Hawaii -- the best blocking team in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation -- 14 to 8.5. Nick Lamoureux added 11 kills and eight blocks and Krisjanis Berzins 11 kills and 14 digs.

Sophomore opposite Jim Clar led Hawaii with a career-high 22 kills, and senior hitter Lauri Hakala put down 17 kills and came up with 15 digs.

"I told them not to give up and they showed a lot of heart and character for such a young team," Loyola coach Shane Davis said. "We were just trying to get momentum going and play hard.

"We're a young team and this definitely boosts moral. At the end, I just told them to play one point at a time, serve and pass and keep them out of system."

It was point, point and point as the Ramblers got off to a quick 3-0 start in Game 5. Hawaii got as close as 5-3 on a kill by Matt Vanzant only to have Loyola pull away with another 3-0 run.

Grunst was a perfect 6-for-6 in Game 1 and Loyola outblocked Hawaii 4-0. The Warriors also gave up seven points on serving errors, effectively killing any momentum during the opening 25 minutes.

Hawaii picked up its first block of the match very late in Game 2 when stuffing Anderson for a seemingly safe 27-22 lead. Loyola came back to 27-26, helped by setter Brian Guntli's two aces.

The Ramblers' tough serving continued with an ace by George Kambros, tying it at 28. Loyola held off two game points by Hawaii, but not a third. Jake Schkud, making his first appearance of the season, scored the final two points on a kill and an ace.

The seesaw Game 3 appeared to tip Hawaii's way when a kill by Schkud broke a 21-21 deadlock and jump-started a 4-0 run. Again Loyola answered, making up the deficit and taking a 28-27 lead on a kill by Berzins.

The Warriors had their own response. Clar put down two quick kills to gain game point and Matt Rawson's serve teased the net tape before falling over for his first career ace, giving Hawaii a 2-1 edge.

Loyola forced Game 5 with an improbable comeback in Game 4. Down by as much as 19-11 and 21-15, the Ramblers hung tough when they needed to, clawing back to tie it at 25.

It was tied four more times, the last at 29-29. Lamoureux put down his 10th kill and then teamed with Anderson to stuff Hakala for the team's 13th block.

BYU 3, Penn State 0

The Cougars were as good as advertised early and even better late to sweep the Nittany Lions in 99 minutes.

Junior middle Russell Holmes (11 kills, .667, six blocks) and freshman opposite Robby Stowell (11 kills, .474, four blocks) led a balanced and impressive attack in which the Cougars hit .655 with no errors in Game 3.

Equally impressive was BYU's serving, with nine aces -- four by Ivan Perez and three by Yosleyder Cala -- against 16 service errors. Penn State's ratio wasn't good -- three aces, 12 errors -- but coach Mark Pavlik was more concerned about the unforced errors his team committed.

"My biggest fear was to come in here and let (BYU) get a lead with our errors," Pavlik said. "Eight of the first 10 points of Game 1, seven of the first points of Game 2 ... we gave up 38 points on our errors ... and that's not including their (nine) blocks. You can't do that against a team like that.

"Overall, we're taking the right steps toward getting better. That's why we come here. We know we're going to get beat up before we get better."

Sophomore middle Max Holt led Penn State with 11 kills.

There's not much the Cougars have to improve on for tonight's match with the Ramblers.

"I thought we did a nice job in passing," co-head coach Shawn Patchell said. "Stowell, our freshman, looked good and we were able to stay in system to get him the ball.

"We played well and we'd like to keep that up."

With the tournament shortened by a day, BYU will not face conference rival Hawaii.

"It would have been nice to see them here, it's a nice rivalry," he said. "But we'll see them soon enough."

The Warriors travel to Provo for MPSF matches with the Cougars on Feb. 23-24.

Note: In his first year as BYU team manager is Jesse Tukuafu, who played volleyball at Saint Louis. He is the younger brother of former Warrior Torry Tukuafu.

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