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A week ago, a University of Hawaii volleyball player proposed to his girlfriend.
On Saturday in Provo, Utah, the Rainbow Warriors missed a chance to earn a ring.
In a five-set loss to Brigham Young, the Warriors squandered a chance to earn a share of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation’s regular-season title when they lost 22-25, 25-21, 23-25, 25-18, 15-13.
The Warriors, who finished second, will host Long Beach State on Saturday in the quarterfinals of the MPSF playoffs. UC Irvine, which began the weekend a half-match behind the Warriors, won the regular-season title and earned the No. 1 seed.
"We had a chance to win," UH coach Charlie Wade said. "We didn’t play great, but we played hard."
The Warriors needed to win both matches against BYU during this weekend’s road trip. Instead, the Warriors extended a streak in which they have not won in Smith Fieldhouse since 2003.
"It’s huge," BYU outside hitter Phil Fuchs said of the two-match sweep. "We’ve been talking about it all week. We’ve been telling ourselves, ‘We can take these guys,’ " and they came in (Friday), and we took ’em. They came in (Saturday), and they played really well, and we took ’em. We know we can go toe to toe with any team."
Fuchs pounded a career-high 22 kills and had 10 digs. Freshman outside hitter Brenden Sander added 16 kills, including four in a row in the fifth set.
Brook Sedore led the Warriors with 21 kills, including nine in the third set.
In Friday’s match, the Warriors played tentatively. In the rematch, Wade implored his servers to rip away.
"We wanted to make sure we stayed aggressive," Wade said. "We’re better when we bring the fight to them rather than let them dictate the tempo."
The Warriors blasted five kills, and middle Taylor Averill had a four-point serving run in the fifth set. Averill went with jump-spin serves on Saturday after using floaters on Friday.
The price for aggressiveness is over-aggressiveness. The Warriors gave away a season-high 24 points on service errors.
Wade was comfortable with the tradeoff.
"You’re serving them out of system and they have to play defense or you miss," Wade said, noting service errors also break a receiving team’s rhythm.
But the Cougars, even out of system, found points from Fuchs and Sander. Fuchs was able to attack quick sets from behind the 3-meter line. Sander twice scored on left-handed push shots.
Wade turned the rotation to change the matchups. In one move, setter Jennings Franciskovic, who has a 41-inch vertical off an approach, switched with Sedore on a blocking assignment. On another, Averill and Davis Holt switched to face different middles.
The Warriors built a 9-7 lead in the fifth. Then Jake Langlois, BYU’s leading hitter, came off the sideline for a crossing kill. He exited after that play, ending his only appearance in this series.
With Sander serving, the Cougars scored the next four points to seize control. That run consisted of two BYU blocks and two UH timeouts.
The Warriors were without two key reserves. Outside hitter Hendrik Mol did not make the trip because of an eye infection. Opposite Ryan Leung suffered a back ailment during prematch warmups. Scott Hartley, who was used as a serving specialist, had arm discomfort. All three should be available to play against Long Beach State.
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