Defense was a theme of the week for the reigning national champions.
Seven days after earning the opportunity to defend the NCAA title, the University of Hawaii men’s volleyball team departed for Los Angeles on Saturday coming off a series of practices heavy on defensive work.
The Rainbow Warriors’ defense at the net and in the back row proved pivotal against Long Beach State in a Big West tournament final that highlighted the value of each point.
Those three tension-packed sets with the Beach secured UH’s place in this week’s National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, and the Warriors devoted much of their preparation to extending points leading into what could be a wide-open tournament.
“We’ve seen when we play good defense we beat most of the teams we play against,” UH outside hitter Spyros Chakas said before boarding the team bus outside SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
“Our defense, starting with blocking, is going to be very important. We worked on it, we’ve been working on it since the season started, but it got better and that’s going to help us.”
The Warriors left on a red-eye flight to L.A. on Saturday and have a workout scheduled today at the Wooden Center. They’ll head to Pauley Pavilion to scout the tournament’s opening match between North Greenville and Princeton.
The Warriors will face the NGU-Princeton winner in an opening-round match at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. That winner advances to a Final Four meeting with second-seeded Ball State on Thursday.
On the other side of the bracket, Long Beach State was awarded the top seed and will face host UCLA or Pepperdine in the semifinals. The national championship match is set for Saturday at 2 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN2.
UH will look to extend the trend of title repeats over the past decade — UC Irvine (2012-13), Loyola Chicago (2014-15), Ohio State (2016-17) and Long Beach State (2018-19) won back-to-back titles.
Of the seven teams in the bracket, UH and Pepperdine are the only returnees from last year’s tournament in Columbus, Ohio, and the Warriors have three starters back from the title team in setter Jakob Thelle, middle blocker Guilherme Voss and outside hitter Chaz Galloway.
“It’s feeling very familiar to what we experienced last year and hopefully it looks exactly like last year and we can bring it home again,” Voss said on Saturday.
The Warriors packed with them the experience of preparing for the tournament as well as performing on the NCAA stage.
“Last year this period, the week before NCAA, was one of the best weeks of practices we’ve ever had,” said Chakas, a top reserve last season and now one of UH’s kill and ace leaders. “I think that we also saw that this week. It was really high energy and just a great level of engagement from everyone.”
A chaotic conference tournament season only reinforced UH coach Charlie Wade’s assessment of the national title hunt back in the fall.
He projected an unpredictable race for the crown, and maintained that view entering the final week of the season. Long Beach State and UCLA were granted the two at-large berths after losing in their conference tournaments. Penn State spent the entire regular season ranked among the top five teams in the country but didn’t make it out of Happy Valley after a conference tournament loss.
“That part hasn’t changed about this year, and you saw that by virtue of all the upsets that happened,” Wade said last week. “There are a lot of good teams that could win this tournament, some of which aren’t even in the tournament.
“That’s kind of a new thing for men’s volleyball. We’ll see going forward if a team or two can pull away from the pack, but I’d say right now it’s wide open.”
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A LOOK AT THE TOURNEY FIELD
Long Beach State (20-5)
>> Path to Pauley: At-large, Big West regular-season champion
>> NCAA RPI: 1
>> Location: Long Beach, Calif.
>> Coach: Alan Knipe (19th year)
>> Leaders: OH Alex Nikolov (4.60 kills/set, .061 aces/set); S Aidan Knipe (11.08 assists/set); L Mason Briggs (2.63 digs/set)
>> Outlook: Like Hawaii a year ago, the Beach were awarded the top seed in the NCAA bracket despite a loss in the Big West tournament. Beach dropped three dramatic sets in the conference final against UH and will make its fifth Final Four appearance in six years. The exception was last year, when the 2018 and ’19 national champions missed the NCAA Tournament, and Nikolov’s arrival helped the Beach return to prominence. The Beach attack leans heavily on Nikolov, Spencer Olivier (3.31 kps) and Clarke Godbold (2.84) hitting from the pins and the back row. Nikolov is also a weapon from the service line, leading the nation with 57 aces (.613 per set).
Ball State (23-3)
>> Path to Pauley: Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association regular-season, tournament champion
>> NCAA RPI: 3
>> Location: Muncie, Ind.
>> Coach: Donan Cruz (first year)
>> Leaders: OH Kaleb Jenness (4.71 kills/set); S Quinn Isaacson (11.42 assists/set, 0.36 aces/set); MB Felix Egharevba (1.39 blocks/set).
>> Outlook: The Cardinals delivered a statement in sweeping a two-match series with Hawaii in late January and continued their ascent to earn the second seed in the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2002. Cruz, a Baldwin graduate and leading contender for national coach of the year, helped Ball State end a two-decade MIVA title drought with Jenness and Issacson leading an attack that ranks third in the nation at .350. Opposite Angelos Mandilaris played in the 2019 NCAA tournament with Barton College and complements Jenness with 4.19 kills per set. Egharevba leads the nation in blocking.
Hawaii (24-5)
>> Path to Pauley: Big West tournament champion
>> NCAA RPI: 4
>> Location: Honolulu
>> Coach: Charlie Wade (13th year)
>> Leaders: Opp Dimitrios Mouchlias (4.45 kills/set); S Jakob Thelle (9.97 assists/set, 0.55 aces/set); MB Guilherme Voss (1.36 blocks/set).
>> Outlook: The Warriors’ six-match winning streak has tracked along with Mouchlias’ surge since a rough series at Long Beach State. Mouchlias missed last year’s title run while rehabbing from ankle surgery and helped lead the Warriors back to the NCAA Tournament by hitting .415 while averaging 4.63 kills per set over the last six matches. Thelle was named Big West Player of the Year and his athleticism in running the UH attack has the Warriors’ hitting .340, good for fifth in the nation. Spyros Chakas has provided consistent production as an attacker (3.25 kills per set) and from the service line (0.46 aces per set). Chaz Galloway was in a slump late in the regular season but rebounded with 14 kills on .354 hitting in the Big West tournament, and his passing proved critical in UH’s run to the conference tile.
UCLA (21-4)
>> Path to Pauley: At large, Mountain Pacific Sports Federation regular-season champion
>> NCAA RPI: 5
>> Location: Los Angeles
>> Coach: John Speraw (10th year)
>> Leaders: Opp Kevin Kobrine (2.46 kills/set); S Miles Partain (10.26 assists/set); MB Merrick McHenry (.527, 0.99 blocks/set).
>> Outlook: The Bruins needed one of the two at-large bids in order to compete for a national title on their home court. They spent nine weeks at No. 1 in the AVCA Top 15 before a stunning five-set loss to Stanford in the MPSF tournament semifinals. UCLA swept both regular-season meetings with Pepperdine entering Tuesday’s All-MPSF opening-round match. Partain was named the MPSF Player of the Year and leads the nation’s most efficient attack (.375). McHenry, a 6-7 junior, ranks second in the country in hitting percentage and Guy Genis (1.01 blocks per set, .522) was voted MPSF Freshman of the Year.
Pepperdine (19-9)
>> Path to Pauley: Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament champion
>> NCAA RPI: 11
>> Location: Malibu, Calif.
>> Coach: David Hunt (fifth season)
>> Leaders: OH Jaylen Jasper (4.32 kills/set); S Bryce Dvorak (10.81 assists/set, 0.48 aces per set); MB Austin Wilmot (102 blocks, 0.99 per set).
>> Outlook: Jasper, the son of former UH quarterback Ivin Jasper and Rainbow Wahine basketball player Donna Joe (Gondringer), helped end his former team’s storybook run with 14 kills in the MPSF title match against Stanford. He had 24 kills on .425 hitting in a four-set semifinal win over USC. Dvorak was named the MPSF tournament MVP after averaging 11.07 assists in the Waves’ 14 sets. Willmot, a 6-10 graduate student, hit .358 (24 kills, 53 attempts) in the tournament as the Waves earned the program’s third straight NCAA berth and 18th overall. Pepperdine lost to UC Santa Barbara in last year’s opening round.
Princeton (15-12)
>> Path to Pauley: Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association tournament champion
>> NCAA RPI: 13
>> Location: Princeton, N.J.
>> Coach: Sam Shweisky (13th year)
>> Leaders: OH Ben Harrington (3.36 kills/set, 0.57 aces/set); S Joe Kelly (8.04 assists/set); RS Nyherowo Omene (63 blocks, 0.72 per set).
>> Outlook: The Tigers pulled off perhaps the most impactful upset of the conference tournament season and enter the NCAA Tournament on a 10-match winning streak, the longest active run in the nation. Princeton’s five-set win over Penn State in the EIVA semifinals effectively knocked the host Nittany Lions, then ranked second in the polls and still No. 2 in the RPI, out of the NCAA bracket. The Tigers, the EIVA’s fifth seed, clinched the automatic berth by rallying to a four-set win over NJIT led by the 6-4 Harrington’s 24 kills. Gavin Leising, a 6-9 sophomore, was in on 15 blocks in the EIVA tournament. This is technically Princeton’s second straight NCAA tournament. The Tigers made the field in 2019 in Long Beach, Calif., the 2020 tournament was wiped out by the pandemic and the Ivy League canceled all sports in 2021.
North Greenville (20-5)
>> Path to Pauley: Conference Carolinas regular-season, tournament champion
>> NCAA RPI: 18
>> Location: Tigerville, S.C.
>> Coach: Fred Battenfield (eighth year)
>> Leaders: OH/Opp Gregory Torres (3.38 kills/set), S Sergio Carrillo (9.95 assists/set), MB Michael de la Cruz (0.93 blocks/set).
>> Outlook: The Crusaders pulled out a five-set win over Mount Olive in the Conference Carolinas tournament final to earn the program’s first NCAA berth. De La Cruz, one of five players from Puerto Rico on the roster, was named the Conference Carolinas Freshman of the Year. Perhaps undersized in the middle at 6 feet 3, de la Cruz is hitting .397 and leads the team with 44 aces. He also made the all-conference second team along with Carrillo, a 6-foot-6 senior, and 6-5 outside hitter Diego Rosich. The Crusaders gave Battenfield his 100th win and clinched the regular-season championship on April 9 with a four-set win over Emmanuel College.
At Pauley Pavilion; Los Angeles
>> TV: Hawaii match on Spectrum Sports; Saturday final on ESPN2
>> Radio: Hawaii match on 1420-AM / 92.7-FM
Schedule:
>> Today—Princeton vs. North Greenville, 2 p.m.
>> Tuesday—UCLA vs. Pepperdine, 2 p.m.; Hawaii vs. Princeton/North Greenville winner, 4:30 p.m.
>> Thursday—Long Beach St. vs. UCLA/Pepperdine winner, 2 p.m.; Ball St. vs. UH/Princeton/NGU, 4:30 p.m.
>> Saturday—Championship, 2 p.m.
