It took a little time, but No. 3 Hawaii was more than ready for its first major challenge of the season.
Senor Alaka’i Todd put down a career-high 17 kills and the Rainbow Warriors dropped the first set for only the second time of the season before closing out No. 5 Stanford in impressive fashion, 21-25, 25-15, 25-22, 25-12.
A SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 5,212 on a Wednesday night watched Hawaii (9-1) win its eighth consecutive match and first against a top-five opponent this season.
Senior Spyros Chakas, who sat out Hawaii’s two matches against Tusculum last week, added 15 kills, eight digs, five assists and two blocks.
UH closed out the match on an 8-0 run with Keoni Thiim serving the final seven points. His first ace of the match set up match point and Chakas sent the crowd into a frenzy with a kill out of the back row to end it.
“It took us a little while to transition from being on the bench or not playing as hard to going into that game against an opponent that put pressure on us, but I think we responded well in the first set,” Chakas said.
Hawaii hit .346 for the match after starting slow and falling behind a set to the Cardinal (7-2), who played without senior All-American outside hitter Will Rottman, who missed his third consecutive match.
Senior Kevin Lamp had nine kills in his third start in place of Rottman and Moses Wagner added nine kills in 30 swings.
Hawaii senior middle Guilherme Voss and seven kills in 12 swings and setter Tread Rosenthal had a match-high 39 assists, five digs, three blocks and two of Hawaii’s six aces despite not playing his best game.
“I thought he was absolutely pretty medium in terms of setting today. There’s a lot he can get better,” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said. “That third set was kind of rough too. There was like a half-dozen kind of bogeys that I was like, God, if we’re winning sets with that, then that really bodes well for us.”
‘Eleu Choy finished with a match-high 10 digs for UH, which held Stanford to a .153 hitting percentage after the Cardinal outhit UH .355 to .185 in the opening set. It was only the sixth set UH has dropped all season.
“Four of our first five serves we had the ball back on our side for a real point and we (made an error). It was kind of on us,” Wade said. “We made six errors in the first set which is uncharacteristically high. Maybe a little rust from not playing but certainly settled down and second set was much more efficient.”
The Cardinal passed nearly every UH serve almost to perfection in the first set to take a 1-0 lead.
Middles Ethan Hill and Nathaniel Gates combined for seven kills in 10 swings as the Cardinal were able to get multiple hitters wide open without a UH block.
Chakas and Todd had four kills apiece in the first set but the rest of the Rainbow Warriors combined for only three.
Senior Chaz Galloway, who has started four matches and sat out four matches, including two last week against Tusculum, had one kill and two errors in seven attempts.
He ended the match with seven kills and three errors.
“They passed so well early and that’s just it. When the setter has all options and their middles you have to cover one, it’s like, pick your poison,” Wade said.
Galloway and the ‘Bows got it going in the second set and hit .556 to roll the Cardinal by double digits.
It took three sets from Chakas to get Galloway going with two kills and Galloway served tough during a 4-0 run to help UH distance itself from the Cardinal at 20-11.
Despite serving tough, Hawaii didn’t get its second ace until Spyros sent one off a Cardinal onto the side of the court at match point as UH held Stanford to nine kills in the second set.
Hawaii took its first lead in the third set at 13-12 on back-to-back hitting errors by the Cardinal only to see Stanford rattle off four straight points after the media timeout to go back in front 17-15.
Hawaii trailed 22-20 after a long rally when Voss hammered a kill from the middle and Todd ripped a ball through a triple block to make it 24-20.
Stanford survived the first two sets points to force Wade to call a timeout. Kurt Nusterer then put the crowd on its feet with a thunderous solo block to end it.
Hawaii has now won 10 in a row overall against the Cardinal.
The two teams will play again on Friday at 7 p.m.
NO. 3 HAWAII DEF. NO. 5 STANFORD 21-25, 25-15, 25-22, 25-12
CARDINAL (7-2)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Lamp 4 9 8 27 .037 5 1 9.5
Wagner 4 9 5 30 .133 3 0 9.0
Hill 4 7 5 18 .111 1 2 8.0
Lietzke 4 6 1 9 .556 3 1 9.5
Gates 4 6 1 10 .500 5 2 8.0
Rottman 3 3 1 10 .200 4 1 3.5
Snoey 3 3 4 14 -.071 5 1 3.5
Chang 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Turner 4 0 0 0 .000 6 0 0.0
Kelly 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 1.0
Duross 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Brouillette 1 0 0 0 .000 1 0 0.0
MATCH 4 43 25 118 .153 33 8 52.0
RAINBOW WARRIORS (9-1)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Todd 4 17 6 30 .367 9 1 20.5
Chakas 415 4 30 .367 8 0 18.0
Galloway 4 7 3 23 .174 4 3 8.5
Voss 4 7 0 12 .583 1 4 10.0
Nusterer 4 2 1 6 .167 1 2 4.0
Rosenthal 4 2 0 3 .667 5 3 5.5
Choy 4 0 0 0 .00010 0 0.0
Kauling 3 0 0 0 .000 1 0 0.0
Thiim 4 0 0 0 .000 0 0 1.0
MATCH 4 50 14 104 .346 39 13 67.5
Key — s: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att:
attempts; pct: hitting percentage; d: digs;
ba: block assists; pts: points (kills plus
blocks plus aces).
Service aces — Stanford 5 (Lietzke 3, Gates,
Kelly). Hawaii 6 (Rosenthal 2, Todd, Chakas,
Voss, Thiim). Service errors — Stanford 15
(Lamp 4, Wagner 3, Lietzke 2, Rottman 2, Hill,
Gates, Kelly). Hawaii 10 (Chakas 3, Galloway
3, Thiim 2, Nusterer, Kauling). Assists — Stanford 39 (Lietzke 32, Turner 3, Lamp, Hill,
Gates, Rottman). Hawaii 46 (Rosenthal 39,
Chakas 5, Choy 2). Block solos — Stanford
none. Hawaii 5 (Todd 2, Chakas 2, Nusterer).
Ball handling errors — Stanford none. Hawaii none. Reception errors — Stanford 6
(Rottman 3, Lamp, Snoey, Turner). Hawaii 5
(Chakas 2, Choy 2, Galloway).
T—2:28. A—5,212. Officials—Wayne Lee,
Dickson Chun, Hunter Haliniak, Randy Rubonal.
