Struggling Warriors lose again to Gauchos

SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. >> A second straight loss at UC Santa Barbara didn’t change anything for the Hawaii men’s volleyball team in the postseason picture.

The Rainbow Warriors remain firmly in the seventh playoff spot after Saturday night’s 25-18, 25-20, 25-23 defeat in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match at Rob Gym.

“It was an interesting weekend where we could not move down in the standings,” said coach Charlie Wade, whose team fell to 9-11 in the MPSF and 14-11 overall. “I don’t ever remember being in that situation. We certainly like to move up, so we get a chance to play well at home next week.”

UH finishes the regular season against 4-14 Cal Baptist before hitting the road for the first round of the MPSF Tournament. Who they’ll face remains up in the air, as the top four positions in the standings have yet to be settled among Stanford, BYU, UCLA and Long Beach State.

“There’s too many scenarios,” Wade said. “I know some people are looking at them. We don’t know what’s happening above us. All we can control is how we’re playing entering the playoffs.”

UH started out better than Friday, staying close to the sixth-place Gauchos (17-9, 12-8 MPSF) and taking a 16-15 lead in the first set. But things started to unravel at that point. UCSB went on a 5-0 run, sparked by the monster jump serves from 6-9 setter Jonah Seif. The Warriors never recovered.

UH fell behind 6-3 in the second set as UCSB’s middles continued to dominate the net against the smaller Warriors. The Warriors kept fighting and got to 11-10 on a Nainoa Frank kill in the middle. But a service error followed by a stuff block by Seif gave the Gauchos some breathing room at 13-10. UH then suffered a bad break on a no-call of an apparent lifted ball during a rally and wound up hitting the ball out. UCSB middle Ryan Hardy scored on a stuff block for a 15-11 lead, and the Gauchos later went on a three-point run to take a commanding 18-12 advantage.

The Gauchos outblocked UH 15-6.

Wade changed things up in the third set by bringing in five new players: Brandon Hiehle, Brett Rosenmeier, Mamane Namahoe, Jennings Franciskovic and Iain McKellar. They brought energy and pushed the Gauchos before faltering at the end on a taped serve for an ace.

Rosenmeier finished with seven kills and hit .364 and Hiehle added four kills on a .429 average. Starting middles Frank and Hendrik Mol had solid offensive games, with Frank hitting .571 and putting away eight kills and Mol notching seven kills on .700 hitting.

“It was fun,” Wade said of watching the guys off the bench. “Those guys have worked hard and some of those guys haven’t played too much. We talk all the time about the team that wins is the team that is smiling and has good energy. And they certainly came out and played loose and with good energy and kept it simple.”

“Our first unit, they look exhausted,” he added. “I don’t know if it’s physical or mental. It’s a long season and it looks like it’s worn on them a little bit. It was nice to see those guys (off the bench) come in and play free. They really had a chance to send it to four. I looked over at Santa Barbara and they looked worried. They didn’t want it to go four, and we had momentum. That certainly was a positive for us.”

Wade pumped his fist when Hiehle smashed a ball down the line to tie the score at 23. But UCSB got a kill from outside hitter Matt Marsh (12 kills) and Henri Cherry dribbled a serve off the tape for the winning point.

“We didn’t have that spark this weekend, and Santa Barbara is a good team. They played well,” Wade said. “They were clearly better than us this weekend, and we really never gave ourselves a chance to make something late, to make a run at them.

Mpsf Volleyball

Saturday

UC Santa Barbara def. Hawaii 25-18, 25-20, 25-23

BYU vs. def. UCLA 20-25, 25-20, 25-18, 25-23

Pepperdine def. CSUN 25-21, 22-25, 25-18, 25-20

Stanford def. Long Beach St. 25-23, 22-25, 29-27, 25-19

USC def. UC San Diego 25-20, 25-17, 25-13

Today

UC Irvine at USC

Wednesday

Pepperdine at UC Santa Barbara

Thursday

Stanford at UCLA

CSUN at UC Irvine

Friday

Cal Baptist at Hawaii, 7 p.m., Stan Sheriff Center

USC at BYU

Long Beach State at UC San Diego

NO. 7 UC SANTA BARBARA DEF. NO. 8 HAWAII 25-18, 25-20, 25-23

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 — Hawaii 5 (McKellar 2, Fey, Rosenmeier, Worsley). UCSB 3 (Cherry, Marsh, Seif). Service errors — H awaii 12 (Rosenmeier 3, Zarkovic 3, Frank 2, Hiehle, McKellar, Mol, van Tilburg). UCSB 6 (Seif 3, H. Boehle 2, Kingi). Assists — Hawaii 38 (Worsley 21, Franciskovic 14, Zarkovic 2, Namahoe). UCSB 36 (Seif 29, H. Boehle 2, P. Boehle 2, Marsh 2, Kingi). T — 1:20. Officials — NA. A — 359.