A shot at a title and an opportunity for redemption.
Hawaii earned both with Friday’s emphatic sweep of UC Santa Barbara in the semifinals of the Big West Championship at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
Spyros Chakas’ solo block on match point punctuated the Rainbow Warriors’ 25-18, 26-24, 25-14 win over the Gauchos before a crowd of 4,734 (5,238 tickets issued).
UH’s third win over UCSB this season sets up a third meeting with Long Beach State, this time with the conference championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament on the line.
Top-seeded Long Beach State swept the regular-season series with the Warriors with two four-set wins at the Walter Pyramid on April 1 and 2 and did its part to set up the title showdown with a four-set win over UC Irvine in Friday’s first semifinal.
“Since I’ve gotten here COVID hit so I still haven’t seen the Stan for a Big West final with a full crowd,” UH middle blocker Guilherme Voss said. “We expect to see everyone here.”
Voss was in on two of his seven blocks in a five-point UH run early in the first set and the Warriors controlled the match from the service line and at the net to advance to the Big West final for the third time in the tournament’s four-year history.
Each of UH’s finals appearances have come against Long Beach State with the teams splitting those meetings in 2018 in Long Beach and 2019 in Manoa.
UH opposite Dimitrios Mouchlias, the reigning Big West and AVCA Player of the Week, led the Warriors with 15 kills on .419 hitting and Chakas added 11 kills, two aces and was in on five blocks.
UH setter Jakob Thelle ran a UH attack that hit .388 with eight errors in 85 total attempts and finished with 33 assists and a match-high nine digs.
“We pride ourselves on being productive and efficient and when we do that we think we can beat everybody,” UH coach Charlie Wade said.
UH outside hitter Chaz Galloway, who had hit for a negative percentage over his last five matches, bounced back with seven kills in 12 attempts on Friday and handled a team-high 18 serve receptions without an error.
“He’s been arguably the best receiver all year, so it’s important to have him on the floor,” Wade said. “We need to be passing well to give Jake all options to get all of our offensive weapons in the game.”
Punahou graduate Ryan Wilcox led UCSB with 13 kills and the Warriors held the Gauchos to .167 hitting.
In the Gauchos’ visit two weeks ago, UCSB opposite Haotian Xia hammered 21 kills while hitting .447 in a five-set loss on UH’s senior night. Xia managed just nine kills on Friday and had eight attack errors for a .034 showing.
“That was something I personally focused on,” Voss said. “I knew he was one of their key parts so I did focus on slowing him down.”
UH hit .444 in the first set with just one attack error and held UCSB to a .152 performance thanks in part to six blocks and 11 digs.
“They stepped it up a level and served the ball well,” UCSB coach Rick McLaughlin said. “We know we can play a little bit better, but it just wasn’t our night and Hawaii kind of forced that on us.
“Mostly it’s their serving that makes their block. They get us out of system with some heavy serving and blocking becomes a pretty easy game.”
Mouchlias had seven kills with no errors in 11 swings in the second set to help the Warriors fend off the Gauchos. Wilcox had two aces in a five-point UCSB run that gave the Gauchos an 18-16 lead. The Warriors went on a 6-2 surge and closed the set on Cole Hogland’s solo block.
The Warriors took control of the third set with Chakas’ five-point service run highlighted by back-to-back aces. They continued to pull away and Chakas block set up a third meeting with LBSU.
Mouchlias struggled in the series in Long Beach, but has posted double-figure kill totals in the five matches since.
“Dimi is playing at a high level now. We’re playing a lot better and we’re going to welcome the challenge.”
Long Beach State 3, UC Irvine 1
Alex Nikolov put away 11 of his career-high 28 kills in the fourth set and the top-seeded Beach rallied past the Anteaters in a 22-25, 25-23, 25-19, 29-27 win.
Nikolov hit .558 on his 43 attacks to lead the Beach to its third Big West tournament final.
“He’s a big-time player, he has a big arm and scores points for us all over the court and he makes us go,” LBSU coach Allan Knipe said.
Clarke Godbold added 15 kills on .400 hitting and Nathan Harlan provided a lift off the bench from the service line and with five kills.
Francesco Sani led fifth-seeded UC Irvine with 21 kills on 46 swings. The Anteaters hit .500 in the opening set and .367 for the match. But LBSU countered with a .412 attack led by setter Aidan Knipe’s 53 assists.
With the crowd starting to file in for the UH-UCSB match, LBSU fought off two set points and converted on its third match point in a fourth set that featured 12 ties and four lead changes.
“It was beautiful, especially toward the end when the crowd starting coming in for the next game,” Nikolov said of his first taste of the atmosphere in the Sheriff Center. “It was really loud and I can’t wait for tomorrow’s game.”
