Warriors rally to edge USC

Down and seemingly ready to be fitted for a toe tag, the Rainbow Warriors resurrected themselves — and their season — to surge to a 24-26, 21-25, 25-22, 26-24, 15-9 victory over Southern California on Friday night.

"What do you call that — playing possum?" UH volleyball coach Charlie Wade said in the celebration of the Warriors’ first victory in a month. "Kidding, kidding. But this was huge. We needed this."

Spurred by the Stan Sheriff crowd of 2,186, the Warriors improved to 5-10 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, moving ahead of the Trojans (4-10) and into 10th place. The top eight teams qualify for the MPSF playoffs.

The Warriors lost the first two sets, then watched the Trojans serve for match point at 24-21 in the fourth.

"We started looking pretty dead," UH outside hitter Siki Zarkovic said.

But then Brook Sedore seized control, serving the Warriors to a comeback in the fourth.

The Warriors dominated the deciding set.

"Brook was huge tonight," middle blocker Taylor Averill said. "The thing about Brook is it doesn’t matter how good or how bad he’s playing, he’s just Brook. He’s a high-energy guy."

That was apparent in the gloom of the UH locker room between the second and third sets.

"It really was looking shaky," Averill said. "Some heads were down in the locker room. It was really bummed. We have such great talent, and to start losing like that, especially in the second set, we were not playing like ourselves."

It was Sedore who broke the silence.

Averill recalled Sedore saying: "Man, we’re going to go out there and kill it."

The Warriors stayed alive in the third set, thanks to Averill, who played opposite last year until he suffered a shoulder injury that required offseason surgery. Averill soared to team with JP Marks on a block to make it 24-22, then finished the third set with a solo rejection.

Told he appeared to have Spider-Man-like reach on the blocks, Averill joked: "I do have a couple of bug bites."

Wade said: "Taylor has worked very hard on his blocking. He watches a lot of film. It showed."

Still, the Warriors appeared headed to their fifth consecutive loss when they fell behind 24-21 in the fourth.

Zarkovic’s kill cut the deficit to two points, and gave the serve to Sedore.

In recent matches, Sedore has struggled with his serving accuracy.

"Going back (behind the service line), I told myself: ‘Don’t get too excited,’ " Sedore recalled. "It just worked out for me. I did my same routine, the same thing I always do."

Sedore slammed a kill from the back right to close UH to 24-23. Then Jace Olsen, who had just entered as a blocker, slammed a kill to tie it. After a hitting error gave the Warriors the lead, Sedore finished off the fourth set with an ace off Punahou graduate Henry Cassiday.

"We’ve been working on my serve since last week, and it wasn’t very good," Sedore said. "In the gym, I’m working on getting control of my arm and really getting back to going after it and having fun."

The Warriors raced to leads of 4-1 and 9-3 in the fifth set, and never looked back.

Sedore and Zarkovic each had 16 kills. Marks finished with eight kills but made key digs. Averill had seven kills and hit .357.

Wade said the key was to step away.

"At one point, for us as coaches, we just have to back off," Wade said. "We know we prepared them. We know they know how to play. Less is more. You have to back off and let them figure it out. We prepared them. We had a scouting report. They know what they’re doing. They have the skills. It was a matter of recapturing that kind of X factor, that mojo. They did."