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Punahou product Josh Taylor put down a match-high 11 kills to lead No. 2 Pepperdine over No. 9 Hawaii 25-19, 25-17, 25-23 in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation volleyball match Friday in Malibu, Calif.
The victory clinches a home quarterfinal match in the MPSF tournament for the Waves (17-6, 17-6 MPSF). The Rainbow Warriors (15-11, 13-10) will need to beat Pepperdine Saturday as well as have BYU defeat UCLA Saturday in order to get into the playoffs.
Hawaii holds the tiebreaker over UCLA. The Bruins are 14-9 in the MPSF going into Saturday’s regular-season finale.
The Rainbow Warriors, seeing their four-match winning streak snapped, got 10 kills from Brook Sedore when hitting just .165 as a team. Reigning national player of the week Siki Zarkovic finished with 4 kills and hit .045. UH libero Kolby Kanetake had a match-high 11 digs.
Hawaii led for most of Set 3, the last at 22-21. Pepperdine rallied to close out the match with a 4-1 run in winning a third straight and eighth in nine matches.
