Win or go home.
One of the most exciting phrases in all of sports now applies to the Hawaii men’s volleyball team.
Friday night inside of SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center, the Rainbow Warriors will be in that exact situation in the semifinals of the Outrigger Big West Men’s Volleyball Championship.
It’s the same scenario UH was in a year ago when Hilir Henno, the reigning AVCA National Player of the Year, averaged an insane eight kills per set in a UC Irvine sweep of the Rainbow Warriors in the BWC semis.
The circumstances surrounding Friday’s make-or-break match, likely against the Anteaters again, are much different.
Last year, UH was ranked No. 1 in the country for a while, but there was no overcoming the heartbreaking injury suffered by Spyros Chakas on match point of the final of the Outrigger Invitational against, yes, that dang UCI team again.
Keoni Thiim provided an emotional lift as a fan-favorite, but he already had one foot out the door to BYU citing a lack of opportunities despite starting 14 matches in a quickly-deleted podcast appearance with Gage and Joe Worsley not long after the season was over.
This year, four starters from that team are gone and the program is in a different era.
Many times, more than half of the players on the court for the Rainbow Warriors are freshmen.
Despite that, Hawaii has been ranked in the top five in the country all season, reaching as high as third.
The Rainbow Warriors are 24-5, which is a better record than any other team in the top five not named Long Beach State.
UH has a win over the Beach, finished second to the No. 1 team in the country in the best conference, and is ranked second in the RPI.
Unfortunately, that resume won’t be enough to overcome a potential loss to the Anteaters, who will be the opponent on Friday barring a major upset.
Yes, Hawaii swept UCI twice during the regular season at home, but does anybody trust a selection committee to prioritize that when it comes down to picking an at-large team from the Big West?
With UCLA and Southern California splitting matches last week against each other, nobody should expect, again barring a major upset, anything other than the teams to make the tournament final in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation and Big West Conference to end up in the field playing in Columbus, Ohio, May 8-12. At one point, the Big West receiving both at-large bids actually seemed capable of happening, but not any more.
Hawaii’s four-year run of NCAA final appearances came to an end last season. At the start of this year, the expectations, with basically a brand new team, weren’t quite at that level, until they started playing.
Hawaii started off the season 6-0 at home, but it was the two matches after that, back-to-back wins in the hostile confines of Smith Fieldhouse in Provo, Utah, against Brigham Young, where suddenly a national final didn’t seem out of the question.
Sure, there have been losses to Stanford and Southern California along the way, but the Rainbow Warriors were in good shape to maybe even have a cushion in case Friday’s semi doesn’t go well, to still make the NCAA field.
Until Saturday.
UH dropped a match two weeks ago in straight sets to Cal State Northridge, the No. 6 seed in the BWC tournament, but losing again to No. 18 UC Santa Barbara, combined with the Trojans’ win over the Bruins, puts UH back to where Charlie Wade said they would be at the beginning of the season.
Friday is win or go home. The biggest question is whether UH will be at full strength for that match.
Leading attacker Kristian Titriyski stirred up terrible memories of the Chakas injury when he went down on match point against the Matadors.
He has missed the last four games, but was able to go on this most recent road trip and was out of a boot.
Louis Sakanoko, out of nowhere, didn’t make the road trip this week, and while an injury was cited as his reason for absence, all signs point toward him being able to play at full strength on Friday.
That bodes well for a Hawaii team that missed his energy, his defense and his overall positivity in Saturday’s stunning three-set loss.
Even with three defeats in the last three weeks, this season has been better than anyone could have imagined in January.
The question now is, do they have enough to at least reach the final of their own conference tournament?
If they do, then anything can happen. Just ask Long Beach State about its last match it played in Hawaii.
———
Reach Billy Hull at bhull@staradvertiser.com.
