Unveiling kelly-green jerseys, the Hawaii volleyball team was dressed to thrill in a pulsating five-set victory over Stanford in SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
The scores were 23-25, 25-20, 25-19, 20-25, 16-14.
By winning their 12th in a row over the Cardinal, the fourth-ranked Rainbow Warriors improved to 9-0. The Cardinal fell to 3-4.
The Cardinal relied on an active block to take a 6-4 lead in the first-to-15, win-by-2 fifth set. But the Warriors scored the next three points, two coming on middle blocker Kurt Nusterer’s serves.
The set see-sawed after that, with five ties, the last at 14-all.
But Stanford’s Theo Snoey served into the net to set up the Warriors’ second match point.
Then on a second touch, UH setter Tread Rosenthal took a pass from libero ‘Eleu Choy to place a no-look drop shot in for the match-winner.
“They didn’t really go with me all game,” Rosenthal said of the Stanford block. “I was just trying to get my hitters going but then, I just (decided) to throw it down and get out of there, I guess. I think on every single attack I had, I had one blocker, and it was way to my right.”
The Warriors, who swept a two-match series against BYU on the road last weekend, had minimal time to prepare for this mid-week match. Stanford was swept at UC Irvine over the weekend.
“You always worry how that’s going to be a quick turnaround,” Wade said. “It seems like we can play really good for spurts. It’s maintaining it. … We’re good enough to be the best team. We’re just not that team often enough right now. It’s something we’ll continue to work on.”
The Cardinal entered with a ball-control attack that relied on roll shots and tooling the Warriors’ block.
“You’ve got to play to your strengths,” Stanford coach John Kosty said. “We’re not the most physical team out there. We have really solid ball control. And we’re patient. We take what’s there. They’ve got a lot of tools in the toolbox. We taught them the right situations to do what they need to do. And we find kills anyway we can, and we want to scrap. We’re the type of team that wants to keep hanging around, and we want to see what happens at the end.”
Snoey led the Cardinal with 19 kills on a arm-numbing 40 swings. Moses Wagner added 14 kills.
The Warriors countered with opposite Kristian Titriyski’s team-high 15 kills. Louis Sakanoko, making his second consecutive start at outside hitter, contributed 14 kills, several coming from the back row on pipe sets. Nusterer provided a spark from the service line. He had a seven-point run on his serves in the second set.
Nusterer admittedly was not his best in several phases. “If I’m going to play mediocre in all other aspects, I’m going to at least contribute in one way,” he said of his serves.
The rematch is Friday night.
The Cardinal had 13 kills against four errors in leading the entire way in the fourth set to force extra play.
Unlike the third set when Nusterer sparked a run with his serves, this time he did not force the Cardinal out of system.
In the third set, Nusterer willed the Warriors to a 2-1 advantage. The Warriors trailed 15-14 when Nusterer went behind the service line. He served seven consecutive points, including two aces, to give the Warriors a momentum-setting 21-15 lead. During the surge, Nusterer made two acrobatic digs — diving on the first, and sliding toward the middle back for the other. After his eighth serve did not clear the net, Nusterer responded to the standing ovation by forming his hands into a heart shape.
Behind Sakanoko, the Warriors controlled the set. Sakanoko had five kills and served four natural points, including an ace, in the second set.
On one kill, Sakanoko unleashed a swing that forced Stanford’s Moses Wagner to fall backward. Sakanoko also hit a pipe shot that landed inches from the end line. He made a rolling dig to keep alive a UH sequence.
The Cardinal raced to leads of 11-6 and 14-9 in the first set.
The Warriors rallied behind Titriyski’s crossing shots.
It was 22-all when Nate Clinton blasted a shot off the double block. On the next play, Titriyski hit a line shot long — a call that was confirmed on review. Two plays later, the Cardinal claimed the opening set when middle blocker hit wide right.
NO. 4 HAWAII DEF. NO. 9 STANFORD 23-25, 25-20, 25-19, 20-25, 16-14
CARDINAL (3-4)
ATTACK SET SERVE BLOCK DEF. REC.
NO. PLAYER SP K E TA PCT. A E SA SE BS BA BE D BHE RE PTS
7 Snoey 5 19 5 40 .350 1 0 2 7 0 2 0 9 0 4 22.0
11 Wagner 5 14 6 37 .216 0 0 2 1 2 3 0 7 0 0 19.5
28 Clinton 5 10 6 26 .154 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 4 0 6 10.5
12 Wainwright 5 5 1 9 .444 1 0 0 3 1 4 1 1 0 0 8.0
18 Carreira 5 4 0 9 .444 0 0 1 2 0 4 1 1 0 0 7.0
23 Brouillette 5 2 0 3 .667 43 0 2 8 1 2 0 3 0 0 6.0
1 Porter 5 0 0 0 .000 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 1 0.0
13 Mandelbm 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
14 Gant 4 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
24 Schmitt 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
TEAM 0
Totals 5 54 18 124 .290 51 0 7 24 4 16 2 33 0 11 73.0
RAINBOW WARRORS (9-0)
ATTACK SET SERVE BLOCK DEF. REC.
NO. PLAYER SP K E TA PCT. A E SA SE BS BA BE D BHE RE PTS
10 Titriyski 5 15 7 32 .250 0 0 1 4 1 1 1 5 0 0 17.5
23 Sakanoko 5 14 4 29 .345 2 0 1 3 1 0 1 4 0 1 16.0
7 Roure 5 13 8 29 .172 4 0 2 3 0 2 0 5 0 3 15.5
13 Rosenthal 5 6 2 9 .444 48 0 3 4 0 1 0 7 0 1 9.5
16 Hazan 5 4 2 9 .222 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 5.0
4 Wade 3 3 0 6 .500 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 3.0
8 Nusterer 5 1 1 5 .000 0 0 3 2 0 1 3 5 0 0 4.5
5 Choy 5 0 0 0 .000 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 1 0.0
11 Kearney 5 0 0 0 .000 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.0
TEAM 1
Totals 5 56 24 119 .269 56 0 11 18 2 6 5 37 0 7 72.0
T — 3:01. A — 5,880. Officials — Dickson Chun, Mark Nakashima, Hunter Haliniak, Kerwin
Stenstrom
