Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story!
Two days after winning the national championship, Hawaii naturally topped the final NVA/AVCA Division I-II Men’s Coaches Poll of the season on Monday, marking the second time in program history the Rainbow Warriors finished at No. 1 in the ranking.
UH (17-1) last topped the final coaches poll in 2002 after the Warriors defeated Pepperdine in the NCAA title match at Penn State. The national title was later vacated by the NCAA due to an ineligible player.
UH held the No. 1 spot in the poll for the last 10 weeks and received all 16 first-place votes for the first time in the final poll. The Warriors had drawn 15 first-place votes for eight weeks and received 10 in the April 26 poll following their loss in the semifinals of the Big West tournament.
The remaining first-place votes went to BYU, which ended last year at No. 1 after the 2020 season was cut short in March.
UH was awarded the top seed in the NCAA tournament and swept No. 3 UC Santa Barbara (16-5) in the semifinals last Thursday and No. 2 BYU (20-4) in the title match on Saturday at the Covelli Center in Columbus, Ohio.
UH hit .317 in the tournament matches, while UC Santa Barbara and BYU hit a combined .212 in the semis and finals. The Warriors were also able to sideout on 69% of the serves they faced to 55% for the Gauchos and Cougars.
“We swept both of the teams we played (in the NCAA tournament). That’s kind of crazy,” UH libero Gage Worsley said after Saturday’s match. “It’s nice to be undisputed champions. It isn’t how we did it that mattered, as long as we won. That was the big thing and we took care of business.”
Lewis, which lost to BYU in four sets in the national semifinals, finished the season at No. 4, with Pepperdine at No. 5.
Five of the Big West’s six members finished the season in the top 15. Among conference teams, UH and UCSB were followed by No. 7 Long Beach State, No. 11 UC San Diego, and No. 15 UC Irvine. Cal State Northridge received four points in voting.
76