Wahine maintain just enough focus to sweep

RIVERSIDE, Calif. >> It’s a tough assignment, even if it doesn’t seem that way to the naked eye. When you’re expected to win, sometimes the expectations are a bigger obstacle than the team you’re facing.

No. 14 Hawaii was expected to win Friday night at UC Riverside. The Rainbow Wahine knew it. The Highlanders knew it. Even UCR partisans — who made up roughly half the crowd of 676 in the Student Recreation Center, with UH fans making up the other half — knew it.

And that can be dangerous.

“It’s hard to stay focused,” Annie Mitchem said. “It’s just important for us to keep our side focused and not play down to their level.”

The Wahine delivered the expected sweep. But there were some anxious moments in the third set before Hawaii put away UCR, 25-10, 25-18, 25-22.

UCR (6-15 overall, 1-8 in the Big West) went from a 5-2 deficit to a 12-8 lead in the third set, and was up 15-14 before a double-block by Nikki Taylor and Casey Castillo, followed by a kill by Emily Maglio, put the Wahine back in front. UCR tied the set again on a Brooke Callahan kill, but Hawaii (15-5, 8-1) scored the next four points to restore order.

How do the Wahine overcome what seems like a natural tendency against an overmatched opponent, especially in a gymnasium environment utterly foreign to the big-time atmosphere to which they’re accustomed?

“It’s everyone holding each other accountable,” Taylor said. “When someone is lapsing, we’re all teammates. We all know what gets (the others) to tick. It’s about you as a teammate going up to that specific person or persons and being like, ‘Hey, let’s get it back together. Let’s go. We need to start picking up our game.

“ … Everybody takes things differently, and it’s all about knowing your team and knowing the best ways people will receive information, because if you’re saying it wrong they’re not going to receive it and it’s going to kind of be pointless. As the captain, it’s my job to understand each specific person and the way they receive information, because at the end that’s how we’re going to get our team to be strong all the way through to the end of the match.”

Hawaii coach Dave Shoji, who moved within six of 1,200 career victories — and could move within five tonight at Cal State Fullerton — figured that his team’s easy first set might have been a factor.

“I think we kind of let our guard down,” he said. “UCR started playing well. They dug a lot of balls, played great defense, and we just weren’t quite ready for that. So we played some loose points, and all of a sudden they’re in the game.

“But it is hard to keep your focus when you win 25-10, like we did in Game 1.”

Taylor continued her ascent in the UH record books Friday night with 11 kills to move into 12th place on the school’s all-time list in that category with 1,270, and she added four aces and one solo block. McKenna Granato had 12 kills — including points 24 and 25 in the third set to close out the match — and two aces.

Junior Kalei Greeley, returning to her hometown and playing before friends and family members who watched her at Riverside King High, again spent most of the night at defensive specialist but did get some chances to hit. But her surgically repaired shoulder didn’t cooperate.

“I’m not very happy with it at all,” she said, after going without a kill in five chances. “I was hoping to come out with at least one kill. I’ve just got to keep trying as hard as I can. I still swing in practice, and hopefully one day that’ll transfer onto the court and I’ll be able to play full-time.”