Better effort, but UH still no match for BYU

A moral victory? Perhaps.

Nonetheless, it was still a loss.

No. 7 Hawaii did something that hadn’t been done since Jan. 23. It took a set off No. 2 BYU.

While it still ended up as a fifth consecutive loss, the Rainbow Warriors feel they can build off Friday’s 25-22, 25-22, 23-25, 25-21 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation volleyball loss to the Cougars.

“We showed we could play with a team like BYU, and they are an awesome team,” Hawaii freshman setter Joe Worsley said after his third career start. “We showed a lot of fight, something that had been lacking.

“We just need to combine that with continuing to play better going out on the road next week.”

It doesn’t get any easier from here, as the eighth-place Warriors head to seventh-place Cal State Northridge for matches next Friday and Saturday. The Matadors (11-7, 5-7) picked up an impressive four-set win at No. 5 Penn State earlier Friday.

“There are no gimmes in this league,” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said. “And it wasn’t a moral victory.

“We showed we could play at a high level. We just need to sustain it. We handed out a lot of losses like this last year. We just need to keep getting better.”

As 3,431 watched at the Stan Sheriff Center, Hawaii did do a better job on sophomore Ben Patch, he of the 22 kills and .700 hitting percentage on Wednesday. Patch still finished with a match-high 17 kills, four big ones coming in the deciding Set 4.

Leading the Warriors was senior hitter Siki Zarkovic with 16 kills and junior hitter Kupono Fey with 14. Freshman opposite Stijn van Tilburg added 12 and senior libero Kolby Kanetake finished with 18 digs.

Hawaii’s lineup changes — Worsley in his third start, freshman middle Dalton Solbrig in his first — had the Warriors playing better from the start.

Hawaii jumped out to a 10-7 lead and had the Cougars calling their first timeout of the trip. After a Worsley service error, sophomore hitter Brendan Sander heated up from the service line. When it was over, he had three aces and BYU took the lead for good at 13-10.

Hawaii battled back to within 20-18 but was called for a questionable illegal screen that helped put the Cougars up 22-18. A kill by Fey and Hendrik Mol’s solo stuff of Price Jarman pulled the Warriors to within 23-21, but all BYU had to do was sideout and Jarman ended it to run the Cougars’ consecutive set winning streak to 34.

Their 35th was anything but easy. After being down by as many as four (17-13), the Warriors rallied to tie at 17 and 18. A relatively quiet Patch put down his eighth kill to jump-start a 4-0 deciding run.

Hawaii again rallied, two kills by Zarkovic making it 23-22. The Warriors could get no closer as the Cougars went up 2-0 on a kill by Jake Langlois and a hitting error by Fey.

Behind Zarkovic’s serving run, which included two aces, Hawaii enjoyed its largest lead of the night at 13-8. Trailing 14-11, the Cougars used two blocks to solidify a 7-1 roll and appeared to take control at 18-15.

The Warriors again dug deep, scoring five unanswered, capped by Worsley’s bullet on the second contact, to regain the lead at 20-18. It would be tied three more times, the 13th of the set at 23.

Freshman middle Nainoa Frank, newly inserted into the lineup, put down his first swing and Fey ended it with his 10th kill.

It was the first set BYU had dropped since being swept at Long Beach State on Jan. 23.

Hawaii looked like it could push it to a fifth — BYU’s only other loss came at home in five to Stanford on Jan 15. The Warriors led 13-12 only to have Langlois put down one of his 12 kills, starting a 6-0 spurt for the Cougars.

Outscored 8-1, Hawaii slowly made up a 20-14 deficit by answering with two kills by Zarkovic to help close to 21-18 and 22-19. The Warriors simply ran out of time to finish playing catch-up. Zarkovic’s final kill delayed the inevitable for one point, closing to 24-21, but a service error by Fey ended it anticlimactically after 2 hours and 20 minutes.

MPSF VOLLEYBALL

Friday

BYU def. Hawaii, 25-22, 25-22, 23-25, 25-21

UCLA def. UC Santa Barbara, 25-22, 25-15, 25-23

UC Irvine def. UC San Diego, 26-24, 25-15, 25-10

Penn State Invitational

CSUN def. Penn State, 20-25, 39-37, 25-23, 25-21

Long Beach State def. Mt. Olive, 25-13, 25-22, 25-21

Today

Cal Baptist at USC

UC Irvine at UC San Diego

Long Beach State at Penn State

CSUN vs. Mt. Olive at Penn State Invitational

Sunday

Stanford at Pepperdine

No. 2 BYU def. No. 7 Hawaii, 25-22, 25-22, 23-25, 25-21

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 — BYU 4 (Sander 4). Hawaii 5 (Zarkovic 2, Fey 2, Cowell). Service errors — BYU 16 (Patch 6, Durkin 4, Langlois 4, Jarman 2). Hawaii 18 (Worsley 4, van Tilburg 4, Zarkovic 3, Fey 3, Mol 2, Solbrig 2). Assists — BYU 44 (Durkin 44). Hawaii 52 (Worsley 46, Kanetake 3, Zarkovic 2, Franciskovic). T — 2:20. Officials — Ron Stahl, Dan Hironaka. A — 3,431.