Wobbly Warriors stumble again on road

Different venue. Different lineup.

Same result.

For a fourth consecutive match, No. 3 Hawaii found itself on the losing side of the volleyball court when falling to No. 7 Pepperdine 27-25, 25-19, 22-25, 25-20 Sunday evening in Malibu, Calif.

Junior hitter Stijn van Tilburg put down a team-high 20 kills and junior hitter Brett Rosenmeier added 14 in starting his first match since Feb. 25 in the nonconference contest that lasted 1 hour and 55 minutes.

It’s the longest losing streak for the Rainbow Warriors (13-6) since 2016 when they dropped five in a row. Hawaii, going 0-3 on the road, avoided a third consecutive sweep when pulling out Set 3 in Firestone Fieldhouse.

Junior All-American hitter David Wieczorek led the Waves (13-6) with 22 kills, and had three of the 10 aces and four of the 12.5 blocks. Senior hitter Alex Harthaller finished with a double-double (14 kills, 11 digs) as Pepperdine snapped a four-match losing skid against Hawaii.

Rosenmeier replaced sophomore hitter Austin Matautia, who had started the past seven matches. The Warriors were 9-2 before the lineup change.

“We went back to the lineup we had used the most,” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said in a telephone interview. “Some good things came out of it. We had been in kind of a funk. There was better effort, better execution, but there’s still some work to be done.

“Brett had been struggling, but he was solid all night and that’s a real positive.”

The negative? Sophomore opposite Rado Parapunov continued his struggles (seven kills, hitting .000) and senior libero Tui Tuileta was aced six times.

Tuileta also finished with 13 of Hawaii’s 33 digs. Junior middle Dalton Solbrig was in on five of the Warriors’ six blocks.

Hawaii struggled early, going down 14-8 and 21-13 before rallying with seven consecutive points to close to 21-20. Parapunov’s ace — the Warriors’ lone of the night — tied it at 24 and a kill by van Tilburg tied it at 25.

The Waves used a kill by Wieczorek and a hitting error by Rosenmeier to end it. Set 2 saw Hawaii dropping its 11th straight set going back to the March 10 loss to Brigham Young, when the Cougars won the final three sets of the 3-1 victory.

The Warriors avoided the sweep when holding off a late challenge from the Waves in Set 3. Hawaii had brief thoughts of pushing it to a Set 5 for the first time this season when leading 11-9 in Set 4; Pepperdine ended that with a 5-0 run to take the lead for good.

Hawaii (1-3 Big West) returns home for a pair of conference matches against UC San Diego (9-12, 0-4) on March 30 and 31. First serve for both is 7 p.m.