No. 3 UC Irvine was supposed to present a tough test for the fourth-ranked Hawaii men’s volleyball team to open Big West Conference play.
The Rainbow Warriors made it look easy at times instead, rattling off consecutive sweeps to cap off by a 25-22, 25-19, 25-20 victory Sunday in front of a SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 7,200.
Hawaii opposite hitter Kristian Titriyski hit a career-high .571 with a match-high 19 kills and Louis Sakanoko added 12 kills while hitting .440 for UH (15-1, 2-0), which will likely climb at least one spot if not two in the AVCA Top 20 ranking released today.
UH is 5-1 against teams ranked in the top 10.
“It kind of confirms what we have been saying all along that not only can we be really good, we could be the best team at the end,” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said. “We’ve got the pieces and we’ve shown we can play at an extremely high level. Now we’ve kind of raised the bar a little bit.”
Hawaii controlled the match from the very start and hit .384 with only nine hitting errors. UH outblocked the Anteaters 11 to 51/2 and allowed only one player to finish with more than five kills.
Hilir Henno had 17 kills and hit .430 for UC Irvine (10-4, 0-2), which has lost four straight matches.
Senior Nolan Flexen, who started the week averaging more than four kills per set, had five errors and four kills. He hit a combined .000 in both matches with 10 kills and 10 errors.
“I think it is all because of the scouting report,” senior libero ‘Eleu Choy said. “We practice a lot of different rotations or defensive situations as we like to call it. I think we did a really good job, especially on the net.”
Hawaii setter Tread Rosenthal compiled a match-high 33 assists and had two of Hawaii’s seven aces.
Sakanoko, who tied a career high with six blocks, and Adrien Roure also had two aces.
Freshman Justin Todd, who started both matches against UCI in the middle for Ofeck Hazan, was in on four blocks and had six kills in nine swings.
“It was fun because they are ranked higher than Stanford (UH’s only loss), but it was not that hard,” Titriyski said. “We watched film and we just knew what they were doing, how they were doing, and when they were doing it.”
The Anteaters outhit Hawaii in the opening set, hitting .435 as a team with Henno connecting on five kills in nine swings without an error.
UCI held its largest lead at 15-12, but served out coming out of the media timeout.
Sakanoko then served back-to-back aces to get the set even and UH pulled away late with five aces and four blocks.
Hawaii continued its momentum into the second set, using a 5-0 run with Titriyski serving to pull away for a 2-0 lead.
Sakanoko and Kurt Nusterer were in on back-to-back blocks to extend the lead to 20-15 and Sakanoko maneuvered a kill around a triple block to put UH ahead by seven points.
The Rainbow Warriors closed out the set on Henno’s second error in the match as UCI hit just .133 in the second set.
Hawaii closed out the match hitting.450 in the third set.
“One of the things we were talking about, and even more so this week, is situational awareness on both offense and defense,” Wade said. “The numbers are telling us this is what we should defend and it takes some communication and it takes being deliberate and the same thing is true offensively. They are defending us in a certain way and there are matchups we want to exploit and Tread did a great job sticking with the gameplan.”
UH will only have two matches off between sets, returning to the court Wednesday against Lindenwood (Mo.).
NO. 4 HAWAII DEF. NO. 3 UC IRVINE 25-22, 25-19, 25-20
ANTEATERS (10-4, 0-2 BIG WEST)
ATTACK SET SERVE BLOCK DEF. REC.
NO. PLAYER SP K E TA PCT. A E SA SE BS BA BE D BHE RE PTS
20 Henno 3 17 4 30 .433 1 0 2 1 0 0 0 3 0 2 19.0
5 D’Arcy 3 3 4 9 -.111 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 4 0 0 3.5
23 Grigoriev 3 5 1 9 .444 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 6.0
9 Flexen 3 4 5 15 -.067 1 0 1 1 0 2 0 4 0 3 6.0
14 Kiriakou 3 0 2 5 -0.4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0.0
1 Aitken 3 0 0 0 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 2 0.0
7 Goss 3 5 0 7 .714 0 0 3 3 1 2 1 3 0 0 10.0
12 Karlous 2 0 0 0 0.0 13 1 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0.0
24 Rigg 2 0 0 3 0.0 18 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0.5
13 Webe 1 0 0 0 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0.5
Total 29 34 16 78 .231 34 1 6 9 2 7 1 27 0 7 45.5
RAINBOW WARRORS (15-1, 2-0 BIG WEST)
ATTACK SET SERVE BLOCK DEF. REC.
NO. PLAYER SP K E TA PCT. A E SA SE BS BA BE D BHE RE PTS
5 Choy 3 0 0 0 0.0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 3 0.0
8 Nustere 3 2 1 5 0.2 1 0 0 0 1 4 1 0 0 0 5.0
13 Rosenthal 3 0 0 6 0.0 33 0 2 2 0 2 0 5 0 0 3.0
23 Sakanoko 3 12 1 25 .44 1 0 2 3 0 6 0 3 0 1 17.0
9 Todd 3 6 1 9 .556 1 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 8.0
4 Wade 3 0 0 0 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
7 Roure 3 3 3 13 0.0 1 0 2 3 0 0 0 2 0 2 5.0
10 Titriyski 3 19 3 28 .571 0 0 1 4 0 4 0 6 0 0 22.0
11 Kearney 3 0 0 0 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Totals 30 42 9 86 .384 38 0 7 12 1 20 1 25 0 6 60
T — 2:02. A — 7,200. Officials — Brian Brokenbough, Dickson Chun, Kevin Chun, Mark Nakashima
BIG WEST MEN
Conference Overall
W L Pct. GB W L
Hawaii 2 0 1.000 — 15 1
Long Beach St 0 0 .000 1 14 0
CS Northridge 0 0 .000 1 12 2
UC San Diego 0 0 .000 1 12 14
UCSB 0 0 .000 1 9 17
UC Irvine 0 2 .000 2 10 4
Friday
CS Northridge def. Cal Lutheran, 25-18,
25-21, 25-20
UC San Diego def. Menlo, 25-18, 28-26,
25-16
UCLA def. UC Santa Barbara, 25-17, 22-
25, 25-20, 25-18
Hawaii def. UC Irvine, 25-21, 26-24, 25-22
Saturday
UC San Diego def. Stanford, 24-26,
25-22, 22-25, 25-22, 15-11
Sunday
Hawaii def. UC Irvine, 25-22, 25-19, 25-20
Today
Sacred Heart at CS Northridge
Wednesday
Long Beach State at CS Northridge
Sacred Heart at UC San Diego
Lindenwood at Hawaii, 7 p.m.
