Warriors get seventh straight win over Tritons with sweep

Pro Bowl Beach may have been 2 miles away, but it didn’t stop No. 5 Hawaii from throwing its own block party Friday night.

Led by junior middle Hendrik Mol’s career-high six stuffs, the Rainbow Warriors outblocked UC San Diego 10.5-6 en route to a 25-20, 25-16, 25-17 sweep Friday night at the Stan Sheriff Center. Senior hitter Siki Zarkovic finished with a match-high 12 kills — five coming in Set 3 — as Hawaii needed just 99 minutes to win its 15th consecutive home match dating back to last year.

“The blocking was good tonight,” said Mol, moving from opposite to middle this season. “I thought we passed well and Jennings (junior setter Franciskovic) sets the ball at such a high point it makes it easy.”

The high point, according to Mol, was Franciskovic’s straight-down slam of a service overpass in the middle of Set 2. It came following an ace by Iain McKellar and “he said he had dibs on the overpass,” Mol said of Franciskovic. “He called it and then it happened. It was spectacular.”

McKellar followed with another ace, his third of the match, as the Warriors took control with a 5-0 run at 13-5.

A crowd of 2,219 also saw senior libero Kolby Kanetake continue his climb up the career digs list. His seven digs in Set 1 tied him for No. 9 with Nejc Zemljak; Kanetake finished with nine to up his total to 617, 32 away from catching Carlos Briceno (649).

Hawaii was efficient (.397) and balanced (four players with five kills or more) in handing UCSD (3-6, 0-5) its 27th straight conference loss dating back to 2013. It was the seventh consecutive win over the Tritons for the Warriors, who hold a 50-4 lead in the series.

Sophomore opposite Tanner Syftestad led the Tritons with 11 kills.

“Hawaii has three good passers and they played well,” UCSD coach Kevin Ring said. “They sided out at 90 percent that first set.

“I thought we steadied out after the first but had problems scoring points. We need to involve our middles more.”

The Tritons will get a shot at that in Sunday’s 5 p.m. rematch.

Hawaii coach Charlie Wade was pleased with the Warriors’ defense, a point of emphasis the past few weeks. He also was happy to get in several of his reserves, including freshman hitter Brett Rosenmeier, who had three kills with no errors on five attempts in Set 3.

He also said it was no surprise that Zarkovic continued to have a strong senior year.

“I think he hears the clock ticking,” said Wade, who broke his left wrist Wednesday in a fall at home. He was in a cast and sling Friday night.

Hawaii never trailed until Set 3, when UCSD scored the first point. It was tied five times, the last at 6-6 with an attack error by Triton junior hitter Ian Colbert putting the Warriors ahead for good at 7-6.

Hawaii finished with a 6-1 edge in aces.

Friday

Hawaii def. UC San Diego, 25-20, 25-16, 25-17

UCLA def. CSUN, 20-25, 25-23, 27-25, 25-19

BYU def. UC Irvine, 25-20, 25-23,25-20

Long Beach State def. UC Santa Barbara, 25-22, 24-26, 25-20, 23-25, 15-13

Stanford def. Cal Baptist, 25-22, 25-21, 25-21

Saturday

BYU at UC Irvine

Pepperdine at Cal Baptist

Sunday

UC San Diego at Hawaii, 5 p.m., Stan Sheriff Center

Stanford at USC

No. 5 Hawaii def. UC San Diego, 25-20, 25-16, 25-17

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 — UC San Diego 1 (Zhu). Hawaii 6 (McKellar 3, van Tilburg, Mol, Frank). Service errors — UC San Diego 7 (Schmidt 2, Zhu 2, Colbert, Syftestad, La Mont). Hawaii 9 (Mol 4, McKellar 2, Franciskovic, Zarkovic, Fey). Assists — UC San Diego 32 (Stojcic 18, Blaich 11, Howard 2, Colbert). Hawaii 36 (Franciskovic 32, Rosenmeier 2, Zarkovic, Fey). T — 1:33. Officials — Ron Stahl, Dickson Chun. A — 2,219.