If there had been a complaint this season, it would have been that Hawaii’s matches didn’t take long enough. The 24 consecutive sweeps usually had the Stan Sheriff Center’s departing crowd home well ahead of the start of the 10 o’clock news.
Saturday night’s Big West match against No. 3 UC Santa Barbara took 2 hours and 23 minutes — the longest of the year — but it was worth the extra time for the first sold-out crowd since 1997.
The top-ranked Rainbow Warriors may have dropped their first set of the season, which snapped the NCAA record sets-won streak at 74, but they kept the more important streak alive — their run of match wins. Behind senior Stijn van Tilburg’s season-high 22 kills, Hawaii remained undefeated with a 25-16, 25-21, 23-25, 25-19 victory.
In doing so, Hawaii (25-0, 8-0 Big West) guaranteed itself a top-two seed and bye into the Big West tournament semifinals on April 19. Defending national champion Long Beach State, Hawaii’s next opponent, will be the other top-two seed in the April 18-20 tournament at the Stan Sheriff Center.
But that is two weeks from now. Saturday was all about the four seniors — van Tilburg, setter Joe Worsley, hitter Brett Rosenmeier and middle Dalton Solbrig — all of whom were buried in lei and performed a ha’a along with their rest of their teammates.
“I want to thank the best fans in the world,” Worsley said when taking the microphone at the conclusion of the celebration. “Come back in two weeks. We want to bring back a national championship.”
This senior class has 87 career victories, tying it for the most in program history. They share it with Mason Kuo, the lone senior from 1996-99.
“This is a pretty special group,” Warriors coach Charlie Wade said. “Just to get the vibe around the community back for men’s volleyball is really cool. These guys deserve it.”
And about the sets-won streak?
“It’s never good to lose, but they hit .600, they played better than us, they’re a really good team,” Wade said of UC Santa Barbara. “We never talked about the streak.
“Tonight … the crowd was unbelievable. I hope they’ll continue to come out and support this team.”
The night saw van Tilburg pass Siki Zarkovic (1,305) for No. 8 on the all-time career kills list. Van Tilburg now has 1,321.
Junior opposite Rado Parapunov added 20 kills and sophomore libero Gage Worsley had 11 of the team’s 41 digs.
Freshman hitter Ryan Wilcox (Punahou) led the Gauchos (17-7, 4-4) with 13 kills. UCSB is the last team to defeat Hawaii on senior night, that coming in 2013.
UCSB, which had only one ace on Friday, had two when tying Set 1 at 12. The Gauchos added a third in closing to 18-15, but that would be it, as Hawaii used a 7-1 run steered by their seniors.
Rosenmeier had a kill and an ace, and van Tilburg passed Zarkovic. The Warriors hit .444 to the Gauchos’ .077.
Hawaii — the top blocking team in the country — got two straight in Set 2 to break the sixth and what would be the last tie. At 20-20, Solbrig and Rosenmeier teamed to stuff Spencer Fredrick and, after a UCSB timeout, Solbrig joined Joe Worsley to reject Corey Chavers to highlight the 5-1 closing stint.
The Gauchos were nearly perfect to open Set 3, with nine kills without an error on 11 swings to have the Warriors in their biggest hole of the season. Hawaii trailed by as many as six, the last at 23-17, done in by four service errors.
The Warriors made it very interesting by rallying to 23-21 on three straight kills from van Tilburg. Hawaii held off two set points in closing to 24-23, getting another kill from van Tilburg.
Chavers nailed his back-row attack to end it, a celebration put on hold while Hawaii challenged whether Chavers had crossed the 3-meter line. Hawaii lost the video replay challenge as well as its first set of the season, the NCAA record streak at 74.
Service runs by van Tilburg and Patrick Gasman set the tone for Set 4, with the Warriors jumping out to a 10-3 lead and the Gauchos out of timeouts. UCSB got as close as 10-8, but Hawaii was ready to get its senior night celebration started.
Hawaii closes out the regular season at No. 2 Long Beach State (23-1, 8-0) on Friday and Saturday. The Warriors return home the following week to host the Big West tournament.
