Rainbows have Pepperdine, another goal in their sights

There are goals, short term and long term, that the Hawaii volleyball team has set for itself. The most immediate one —that of again defeating Pepperdine in today’s 5 p.m. rematch — is a building block for the next one in line … that of a top-four conference finish and first-round hosting duties in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament.

“Hosting in Hawaii is a huge advantage,” senior hitter Kupono Fey said Saturday as the Rainbow Warriors (15-2, 6-2 MPSF) prepared for the Waves (6-6, 4-5). “Top four is the main goal, but it’s one game at a time.

“We are expecting (Pepperdine) to come back strong. We need to come out stronger.”

No. 4 Hawaii’s practice was moved to Gym II because of a campus badminton class being held in Gym I, where the Warriors normally prepare when not in the Stan Sheriff Center. The change in venue almost was as unexpected as the end of Friday’s match, when the 10th-ranked Waves faded in a 25-21, 25-19, 25-11 100-minute loss.

“I’m sure their coaches and players aren’t happy with how it went,” Warriors coach Charlie Wade said of UH’s eighth straight victory over Pepperdine in Honolulu. “That was not high-level MPSF play on any night, especially by a team like them.

“It got to 17-4 pretty quickly (in Set 3). That’s an anomaly that won’t happen again.”

Warriors senior middle Hendrik Mol hopes not, at least when he not in the rotation. After the Waves sided-out on Mol’s serve at 7-3, Mol was replaced by libero Tui Tuileta.

By the time Mol returned to the court, Hawaii was up 18-5 and Pepperdine was way beyond its timeout limit, having called its second and last at 13-4.

“I was on the bench and wondering when I was going to go in again,” Mol said. “I wasn’t sure if I would. Finally I got to say, ‘Thanks, guys, for letting me play again.’

“You never see that happen, not against a team we sort of feared. But we played well, too. We take great pride in our defense — our attacking side had good numbers with Stijn (van Tilburg with 15 kills, hitting .737) and Kupono (Fey with 10, hitting .500). And we made some entertaining plays.”

Van Tilburg and Fey each had just one hitting error each as the Warriors hit .477 on the night. Hawaii’s ace-to-error ratio also was key, with five aces to seven errors; Pepperdine had two aces to 10 errors, with six of the miscues coming in Set 1, including three straight after the Waves had pulled to 19-18.

What didn’t materialize was the blocking battle between the top two blocking teams in the MPSF. Hawaii finished with a 5-2 edge “but sometimes it doesn’t play out the way you imagine,” Mol added.

“There are always things we can do better. We can improve on our serving and our blocking a little bit. It might be a hard task to do better than we did (Friday), but we will try.”

The Warriors will try to extend several streaks today. Hawaii has won 10 straight matches at home this season, 14 dating back to last year, as well as 17 consecutive sets.

At 15-2, the Warriors are off to their best start since 1996, when they opened 13-0 and entered the postseason 27-1. Hawaii is in third place in the MPSF standings behind No. 2 Long Beach — which clinched a playoff spot on Friday — and No. 3 BYU.