Wahine get rematch with NMSU
POSTED: Saturday, November 22, 2008
The best thing about the Western Athletic Conference volleyball tournament set-up this year? Where the two finalists are concerned, there is a day off between yesterday's semifinals and tomorrow's championship.
WAC Tournament At Stan Sheriff Center
Quarterfinals
Yesterday's semifinals
Tomorrow's final
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Both top-seeded New Mexico State and No. 2 Hawaii are grateful for that. The two survived tough matches to advance to what should be another classic showdown ... for the third consecutive tournament.
New Mexico State (23-7) won its 14th straight, sweeping fifth-seeded San Jose State 25-18, 25-22, 25-18 in 89 minutes.
Hawaii (25-3) needed 101 minutes to extend its winning streak to 11, turning back No. 3 seed Idaho 25-21, 26-24, 25-14.
A turnstile crowd of 3,972 (4,462 tickets) saw another uneven performance by the Rainbow Wahine, who found a way to win Set 1 despite being outhit and outblocked.
“;I'm not quite sure how we won that one,”; Hawaii coach Dave Shoji said. “;But we did play pretty good defense behind a pretty non-existent block.
“;And we somehow survived Game 2.”;
There were some anxious moments for the Wahine before the break. Kanani Danielson's kill gave Hawaii set point at 24-22, only to have a service error and a block by Kelsey Taylor and Kelsey James of Danielson tie it.
Danielson put down one of her seven kills for Hawaii's third set point. Haley Larsen hit long to give the Wahine a 2-0 lead.
Hawaii came out of the break with a renewed energy that translated to a 13-1 lead, 10 straight points behind the serving of Amber Kaufman. It was too big a deficit for Idaho to come back from.
“;I think if you look at the first two games, we played fairly well,”; Vandals coach Debbie Buchanan said. “;We knew we had to come out strong defensively. One thing that broke down was our passing.
“;Game 3, we dug ourselves into a hole. And you can't have huge gaps of points against a team like Hawaii. You need to stay with them because it's so hard to catch up.”;
Idaho, the top blocking team in the WAC, finished with 13, seven in Set 1 alone. Taylor had eight and James five.
Larsen finished with 14 kills to lead Idaho.
Jamie Houston and Cubi-Otineru had 11 kills each for Hawaii. Cubi-Otineru added four aces, three straight in a 7-2 run that started Set 1, and Kaufman had three aces.
“;Idaho is a great blocking team,”; Cubi-Otineru. “;But we were able to stay patient.
“;It's good we have a day off to practice. We're going to need to pass better Sunday.”;
New Mexico State 3, San Jose State 0
Lindsey Yon put down 15 kills and Amber Simpson added 14 on .619 hitting as the Aggies swept the Spartans (13-17) for the third time this season.
Simpson also led an impressive NMSU block, with the senior middle in on six of the team's 16 stuffs. Anchoring the defense was senior libero Krystal Torres, finishing with 16 of the team's 53 kllls.
Defense kept the undersized Spartans in the match with junior libero Kristal Tsukano (Kamehameha '06) coming up with 13 of the team's 44 digs. Kelly Crow led SJSU with 10 kills.
“;I thought San Jose State played great defense,”; Aggies coach Mike Jordan said. “;They won the majority of the long rallies and were very good in transition.”;
The Spartans just weren't good enough when it counted, especially at the end of Set 2 when they had a chance to even the match. San Jose State led 20-18 but was outscored 7-2 in the final minutes before the break.
Hawaii def. Idaho
25-21, 26-24, 25-14
Vandals (19-10)
| s | k | e | att | pct | d | bs | ba | pts |
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| Taylor | 2 | 2 | 2 | 8 | .000 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 5.5 |
| Loney | 3 | 4 | 3 | 13 | .077 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 5.5 |
| Larson | 3 | 14 | 8 | 41 | .146 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 13.5 |
| James | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1.000 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 1.5 |
| Rice | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| McKinney | 3 | 1 | 3 | 9 | -.222 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2.5 |
| Yonker | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 8 | 0 | 0 | -1 |
| Pederson | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1.000 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1.5 |
| Conwell | 3 | 5 | 4 | 20 | .050 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 7 |
| Hamilton | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 3 | 29 | 20 | 94 | .096 | 32 | 1 | 24 | 36
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Rainbow Wahine (25-3)
| s | k | e | att | pct | d | bs | ba | pts |
|
| Kaufman | 3 | 5 | 2 | 10 | .300 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 7.5 |
| Danielson | 3 | 7 | 6 | 22 | .045 | 10 | 0 | 1 | 7.5 |
| Houston | 3 | 11 | 4 | 29 | .241 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 13.5 |
| Thomas | 3 | 4 | 2 | 14 | .143 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 7 |
| Brandt | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | .333 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Cuni-Otineru | 3 | 11 | 4 | 20 | .350 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 13.5 |
| Ferrell | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | -.250 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Hittle | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 7 | 0 | 0 | -1 |
| Keefe | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Kaaihue | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Lee | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 3 | 41 | 21 | 102 | .196 | 38 | 3 | 10 | 50
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Key—s: sets played; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct: hitting percentage; d: digs; bs: block solo; ba: block assists; pts: points (kills + blocks + aces)
Aces—Idaho (1): Larson. Hawaii (7): Cubi-Otineru 4, Kaufman 3. Assists—Idaho (29): James 28, Loney. Hawaii (38): Brandt 32, Thomas 3, Hittle 2, Kaufman.
T—1:41. Officials—Eric Asami, Margie Ray. A—3,972.
