University of Hawaii seniors Rado Parapunov and Patrick Gasman earn honors for No. 1 Warriors

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After sweeping through its second road trip of the season, top-ranked Hawaii claimed two of the Big West’s three weekly men’s volleyball awards on Monday.

UH senior opposite Rado Parapunov was named the conference’s Player of the Week for the second time this season and the 12th time in his career after leading the Rainbow Warriors to three wins over No. 3 UC Santa Barbara last week.

Parapunov led UH in kills in all three victories with 16 in each of the first two and a season-high 20 in Saturday’s series finale. He hit .422 for the series and led the Warriors with 5.20 kills and 2.40 digs per set. He also served up four aces in Saturday’s sweep of the Gauchos, including a run of three in a row early in the first set.

UH senior middle blocker Patrick Gasman claimed the conference’s Defensive Player of the Week award for the fourth time in his career and the first time in 2021. The 6-foot-10 senior was in on 19 blocks, including four solo, over the 10 sets at UCSB. He also set a career high with 14 kills in the four-set opener last Thursday. He averaged 2.90 kills and 1.90 blocks per set and hit .619 with 29 kills and three errors in 42 attempts.

UC Irvine setter Dylan Zhai was named the Big West Freshman of the Week.

Still the one

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After dropping the first set against UCSB, the Rainbow Warriors swept through the next nine to protect their spot atop the NVA/AVCA Division I-II Men’s Coaches Poll.

UH (7-0) remained at No. 1 for the third consecutive week in the poll released on Monday. As in the previous two polls, the Warriors received 15 of 16 first-place votes, with the outlier going to No. 2 BYU (10-2).

Three losses to UH didn’t hurt UC Santa Barbara (4-3), which remained at No. 3, followed by Pepperdine (8-3) and Lewis (11-2).

The next highest Big West team in the poll is No. 10 Long Beach State, which opens its season this weekend against UC Santa Barbara.

UH has a bye this week and next faces No. 13 UC San Diego (1-5) on March 26 and 27 in the Warriors’ first home series of the season at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.