How Hawaii men’s volleyball team got to the top, and where it’s headed

Putting together a talented team is one thing.

Building a championship program is another.

So amid Saturday’s celebration of Hawaii’s sweep of BYU in the NCAA tournament final, there was acknowledgement of the Rainbow Warriors who helped set the foundation for this season’s title run and a nod to the role this group will play in the program’s future.

“This is just the culmination of a lot of hard work by some special young men and built on the backs of a lot of really good players in the program for a long time,” UH coach Charlie Wade said in the press conference amid the revelry following the Rainbow Warriors’ stunningly swift 25-21, 25-19, 25-16 rout of the rival Cougars.

After the Warriors — who went 32-2 combined in the shortened 2020 and 2021 seasons — raised the trophy, performed a haka and sang Hawaii Pono’i on the Covelli Center court, there was time to reflect on the journey to the title, process the dominant performance just completed and consider what may lie ahead as they closed their week in Columbus, Ohio, prior to Sunday’s return to Manoa.

The past

Wade took over a program had gone 20-34 in the two years prior to his debut season in 2010. There would be two sub-.500 seasons in his first four years, but then a breakthrough into the NCAA tournament’s play-in match in 2015, the program’s first appearance in the bracket since the 2002 team won the title match, only to have it later vacated by the NCAA.

Two years later, the Warriors advanced to the NCAA semifinals and lost to eventual champion Ohio State.

Two years after that, they took another step in reaching the NCAA final but were denied the ultimate prize with a four-set loss to Long Beach State.

The onset of COVID-19 forced the Warriors to wait another two years for their next shot and this time reached the summit with Saturday’s sweep of BYU.

After earning tournament MVP honors, senior Rado Parapunov credited the leadership of 2019 seniors Stijn van Tilburg, Joe Worsley, Dalton Solbrig and Brett Rosenmeier for helping set the stage for this season’s title run.

“We’ve been close for a long time. I don’t think a championship or this championship completely defines us,” Wade said.

“It’s certainly a great achievement, but we’re just going to stay focused on the path that we’ve been on that got us to this point. We keep putting out championship caliber teams, developing young men our community’s proud of that are excellent students, that respect each other, respect their opponents. This is what we do. We’re going to keep building on this, and it was part of the plan from the beginning, and that’s not changing.”

The present

The 2021 title match will likely be remembered for Warriors’ dominance from the service line and in serve reception. UH fired 10 aces, six in the second set when Parapunov reeled off three in a row to effectively give the Warriors a 2-0 lead in the match.

“Even in the first set when we were missing more than we should have, you could tell when we go in with some intent it caused some problems,” Wade said. “That was a matchup advantage that we would have and as the match went on guys had some really good service turns.

“The microcosm for us was Rado struggled a little bit, but we just wanted him to stay super confident and aggressive, and he really had great service turn in the second set where he got handful in a row.”

BYU opposite Gabi Garcia Fernandez entered the match with the well-earned reputation as the nation’s toughest server. He recorded eight aces in the Cougars’ sweep to open last year’s series between the teams at the Stan Sheriff Center.

On Saturday, the Cougars won just four points on Garcia Fernandez’s 11 total attempts from the service line. He went back for seven service turns and was off the line after just one attempt four times. He finished with three errors and no aces.

The passing of Colton Cowell, Gage Worsley (21 receptions, one error) and Chaz Galloway (eight receptions, no errors) allowed setter Jakob Thelle to feed Patrick Gasman and Guilherme Voss on quick attacks in the middle and run an offense that hit .381 in the victory.

“The main thing for us was holding that line in reception,” said Cowell, who handled 14 serves without an error. “Holding the line so we could control the middle of the court knowing that we were playing against the best server in the country.”

The future

The championship punctuated the careers of the most successful senior class in program history. Gasman’s seventh kill of the night on match point sealed the 105th victory in his five years on the court. Parapunov, this year’s AVCA National Player of the Year, and Worsley depart as three-time first-team All-Americans. Cowell earned second-team All-America honors this season.

Even so, the Warriors figure to have considerable firepower when they enter 2022 as defending national champions.

Thelle led UH with four aces while distributing 36 assists. Voss, a second-year freshman, put away six kills in nine error-less attempts and was in on three blocks.

Galloway, also in his second freshman season, put down six kills in nine attempts without an error two nights after hitting negative-.077 with three kills and four errors in 13 swings in UH’s sweep of UC Santa Barbara.

“He played with incredible fire, and it was so great to see him rebound and come out with full confidence,” Cowell said. “He’s a young guy, he’s never been in this position, and he absolutely balled out, and he’s going to be a crucial element to the success of this program in the future.”

True freshman Spyros Chakas turned in a pivotal five-point service run late in the first set. Outside hitter Kanai Akana contributed as a serving sub in both matches and middle blocker Max Rosenfeld didn’t see action in UH’s two sweeps but provided production off the bench throughout the season. Sophomore Filip Humler was limited in his recovery from an injury after starting 13 matches in 2020.

“The future’s bright,” Wade said. “We go on these winning streaks sometimes, and people are, ‘well, you haven’t lost.’ No, we lose daily if not weekly. The B side in our practice gym can play at a pretty high level. It’s a testament to the guys who have come through the program and established that culture and help these guys understand how hard to work.”