Warriors put away stubborn CSUN

The Hawaii volleyball team emptied the playbook and played to exhaustion to outlast Cal State Northridge 25-21, 25-12, 28-30, 30-28 at the Stan Sheriff Center on Friday night.

A crowd of 2,075 saw the Rainbow Warriors use all of 2 hours, 26 minutes to improve to 10-3 overall and 7-2 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

The rematch is scheduled for Sunday afternoon, with first serve at 5 p.m.

Brook Sedore slammed 18 kills — crossing the 900-kill career milestone along the way — and pounded six aces for the Warriors.

Middle Taylor Averill had 11 kills, including two slams off bic swings from behind the 3-meter line, and assisted on nine of the Warriors’ 14.5 blocks, including the aloha-ball rejection.

Left-side hitters Scott Hartley had 14 kills in his fourth replacement start for injured Siki Zarkovic, and Kupono Fey had 10 kills and nine digs.

And the shortest Warrior, libero Kolby Kanetake, conjured a career-high 21 digs, including a sliding save in the third set.

But for all those performances, the Matadors refused to go away easily. With backup setter John Peachy at the controls and smack-talking teammates chirping across the net, the Matadors seized the third set and nearly pulled off the fourth.

"I guess we have to be prepared for it," Sedore said. "We almost got beat there."

Indeed, the night’s storyline was filled with several twists. The Warriors had spread their attack to win the first set and then dominate the second.

But the Matadors emerged from the 10-minute intermission with a reshuffled lineup and attitude. They built leads of 9-4 and 12-7, with Peachy serving five points in a row.

"We were rolling along, and we let them have that one service turn where they got five, six in a row," UH coach Charlie Wade said. "Jennings (Franciskovic, the setter) had a couple bad locations, and next thing you know, it’s game on."

Still, the Warriors fought back, in part to Averill sticking around for an extra turn as a back-row threat and Hartley and Fey producing timely kills. Averill’s smash gave UH a 24-23 lead, the first of five aloha balls that did not finish the match in the third set.

Sam Holt’s consecutive kills gave the Matadors the lead at 29-28, then Josiah Byers forced the fourth set with a kill.

The Matadors took a 20-18 lead in the fourth set. But on volleyball’s version of a give-and-go play, Fey passed to Franciskovic, then hit the ensuing set for a kill.

Sedore then tied it at 20 with his fifth ace of the match.

After protesting the ace — they felt a pancake dig should have counted — the Matadors realigned in the wrong defensive formation. They were called for a rotation error, giving the Warriors the lead. Then Sedore delivered his final ace for a 23-21 lead.

But following the match’s late theme, aloha ball proved to be elusive. The Matadors took a 28-27 lead when Hartley’s swing off a pipe set struck the net.

Then Sedore tied it with a line shot on the right side.

Averill and Fey then teamed to block middle Greg Faulkner.

On the final play, Sedore and Averill rejected Holt."

Friday

Hawaii def. CSUN, 25-21, 25-12, 28-30, 30-28

Pepperdine def. UC San Diego, 25-19, 25-14, 25-22

BYU def. Long Beach State, 25-22, 25-16, 25-22

UCSB def. Cal Baptist, 25-11, 25-15, 25-13

UC Irvine def. Stanford, 25-27, 27-25, 25-27, 25-20, 15-9

Saturday

Long Beach State at BYU

Hope Internation at Stanford

Sunday

CSUN at Hawaii, 5 p.m.

USC at UCLA

NO. 7 HAWAII DEF. NO. 14 CSUN 25-21, 25-12, 28-30, 30-28

Key — s: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct: hitting percentage; d: digs; bs: block solo; ba: block assists; pts: points (kills plus blocks plus aces). Service Aces — CSUN 3 (Holt 2, Peachey). Hawaii 9 (Sedore 6, Hartley, Averill, Fey). Service errors — CSUN 18 (Faulkner 3, Stevenson 3, Byers 3, Ciesla 3, Peachey 2, Holt, Lenore, Sakaida, Starkey). Hawaii 20 (Averill 7, Sedore 3, Franciskovic 3, Hartley 2, Fey 2, Holt 2, Leung). Assists — CSUN 33 (Peachey 27, Alegrado 3, Holt, Stevenson, Suarez). Hawaii 56 (Franciskovic 44, Kanetake 4, Hartley 2, Averill 2, Fey 2, Sedore, Holt). T — 2:26. A — NA. Referees — Joe Sloate, Dickson Chun.