Hawaii remains in control of its hopes of returning to the NCAA men’s volleyball tournament.
But as the Rainbow Warriors prepared for today’s semifinal round in the Big West Championship, their margin for error dwindled dramatically as tournaments from coast to coast produced stunning outcomes on Thursday.
No. 1 UCLA fell to Stanford in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament semifinals and No. 2 Penn State saw a rally fall short in a five-set loss to Princeton in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association tournament.
The upsets likely dampened UH’s chances of claiming one of the two at-large berths in the seven-team NCAA tournament field should the Warriors fall short of the Big West title. They also raised the stakes for the fourth-ranked Warriors entering tonight’s meeting with No. 6 UC Santa Barbara at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
As the second seed in the Big West bracket, UH (22-5) had a bye in Thursday’s opening round and third-seeded UC Santa Barbara (19-8), the defending tournament champion, joined the Warriors with a 25-19, 26-24, 26-24 sweep of Cal State Northridge.
Third-ranked and top seed Long Beach State also had a bye and will face UC Irvine, which swept UC San Diego in Thursday’s tournament opener, in today’s 4:30 p.m. semifinal, with the UH-UCSB match to follow.
Hawaii has won the past 12 meetings with UC Santa Barbara dating back to 2017, the last two coming two weeks ago. The Warriors swept the Gauchos in the series opener on April 8, then rallied for a five-set win before a raucous senior night crowd of 5,982.
“I think it’s huge that we were here a couple weeks ago,” UCSB coach Rick McLaughlin said after Thursday’s win. “It was interesting for us to get used to that after COVID and not having a crowd. All of a sudden we have a huge crowd when we come here and we didn’t play great the first night. I think it took a little while to get used to it. But the second night our guys loved it.
“Hawaii has great fans. They want great volleyball, they cheer for both sides and it’s a fun environment and I think our guys are ready.”
UCSB setter Patrick Paragas ran an attack that hit .327, with opposite Haotian Xia putting away a match-high 14 kills on 32 attempts. Punahou graduate Ryan Wilcox added 10 kills and Dayne Chalmers also finished with 10.
Wilcox went 5-for-5 in the opening set as the Gauchos hit .481 as a team.
CSUN took a 20-15 lead in the second set before UCSB went on an 8-1 run to take the lead and closed out the set with an ace from serving sub Sam Collins.
Down 20-19 in the third set, UCSB surged ahead with a three-point run. CSUN fought off a match point before Collins again delivered an ace to end the match.
“I think we’re a very steady team,” Wilcox said. “We don’t have a lot of highs and lows, and even if we get ourselves in a hole we’re pretty confident we can get ourselves out and we just have that belief that we’re gonna win.”
The Gauchos gave up one ace to the Matadors (6-16) and McLaughlin pointed to serve reception as a key in UCSB’s last visit to Honolulu and in tonight’s third meeting with UH.
“We didn’t make too many adjustments (in the second match against UH); we just passed the ball better,” McLaughlin said. “They are deadly from the service line when they get it going. So we got a little better at receiving serve and we got better at serving and getting them in trouble. So we have to do that (today) for sure.”
UC Irvine 3, UC San Diego 0
Coming off a five-set loss to UH last Saturday at the Bren Events Center, the Anteaters avenged two regular-season losses to UC San Diego by sweeping the Tritons in the opening round for the third time in the past four Big West tournaments.
UCI outside hitter Francesco Sani powered the Anteaters with 19 kills and just one error in 31 attempts for a .581 hitting performance in a 25-23, 25-20, 30-28 victory. Opposite Hilir Henno and outside hitter Cole Gillis added nine kills each and UCI hit .405 as a team.
UC Irvine split its regular-season series with Long Beach State, winning in five sets at home on March 10. LBSU answered with a sweep at the Walter Pyramid the following night, but UCI coach David Kniffin said the series provided the Anteaters with “the authentic belief that we can play with anybody.”
“We’ve lost something like seven five-set matches this year. We’ve been competitive with everybody,” he said. “We’re at that point of the season now where it’s like let’s just keep battling.”
Kyle McCauley led UC San Diego with 13 kills in his final collegiate match. Wyatt Harrison, who grew up on Kauai, closed his career with seven kills in 15 swings. His father, Todd Harrison, played for UH in 1987 and ’88.
