Forget the comparing of resumes or the debates over quality of victories.
The Hawaii men’s volleyball team was always focused on making it to the court for the final of the Outrigger Big West Men’s Volleyball Championship and winning it.
Mission accomplished.
The second-seeded Rainbow Warriors claimed their fourth Big West championship with a second victory in 14 days over the No. 1 team in the country, according to the AVCA rankings for the past three months, with a 25-21, 25-22, 21-25, 25-22 win over No. 1 seed Long Beach State on Saturday night.
A SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 8,540 witnessed UH’s fourth consecutive victory when playing in the final of a conference tournament.
A year after a run of four consecutive appearances in the NCAA final came to an end, the Rainbow Warriors (26-5) clinched their spot in the nine-team tournament in Columbus, Ohio, where a national champion will be crowned on May 12.
“I’m still pissed about 2018,” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said about when UH was left out of the NCAA Tournament after losing in the Big West final. “Ever since then, it’s like we know there is going to be a (Big West) championship match and we have to be in it and we have to win it. Anything else is out of our control. When it came down to the end (of the season), we controlled our own destiny and we certainly had that mindset coming into this.”
Freshman opposite Finn Kearney led the Rainbow Warriors with 14 kills and freshman outside hitter Adrien Roure, who was named the tournament’s most outstanding player, added 11 kills and hit .579 for Hawaii.
The Rainbow Warriors hit .540 over the first two sets to take a 2-0 lead and came back after trailing 12-6 in the fourth.
Louis Sakanoko had two aces to spur a 7-1 run to tie the set at 13-all.
The set was tied 11 times, with the last coming at 20-20. A service error and a hitting error by the Beach were followed by two more Sakanoko aces for match point. Long Beach State held off one point before a dump by setter Tread Rosenthal ended it.
“(Friday) was a tough night for me on serve, so I just locked in,” said Sakanoko, who served in at 95.7%. “I did a pretty great job on that, so definitely a great night.”
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All five Hawaii aces came in the fourth set. UH served in at 88.4% and committed 11 service errors. Long Beach State had eight aces and 20 service errors and served in at a 78% clip.
“We just didn’t put enough service pressure on them,” Long Beach State coach Alan Knipe said. “They were just in system too much.”
Nato Dickinson had a career-high 21 kills to lead the Beach (27-3), who will be one of the two at-large teams selected to the NCAA Tournament during the selection show today at 10 a.m. on NCAA.com.
Hawaii started the match playing one of its best sets of the season, hitting .500 with 18 kills on 30 swings to beat the Beach for the fourth time in the last five sets.
Kearney had seven kills in nine swings and UH sided out 86.4% of the time.
The set was tied at 19-19 when Kearney ended back-to-back points with kills and Long Beach State hit out on set point for its fourth hitting error to fall behind.
UH took the lead at 3-2 in the second set and never trailed again, hitting even better than it did in the first set.
Kearney didn’t get a set until it was 16-13 as Rosenthal shared the ball to all of his hitters. Hawaii hit .600 in the set with two errors, with Roure putting down six kills in seven swings.
Five players had at least four kills at the end of the second set, which came on another hitting error by the Beach on set point.
“These guys, I could tell the energy they had,” Wade said. “The dialogue they had was meaningful and accurate. For me, I could kind of step back a little bit. The work has already been done. The crowd was there to push these guys and you could see them feeding off the crowd.”
Moni Nikolov tied the set at 22-all with his second kill, only to see the Beach serve out and then hit out twice.
The Beach came out different in the third set, challenging Hawaii’s serve receive from the start.
Alex Kandev served an ace for the first point and Nikolov, the NCAA leader in aces averaging 0.94 per set with 90 total coming in, served four in a row after going 11 sets against UH without a single one this season to put the Beach in front 7-2.
“I was expecting it in each of the previous (11) sets that we played against him,” Wade said. “The first one was a net cord that hit and fell and that gave him the next turn and then he absolutely detonated a couple of them.”
Long Beach State led by as many to eight before Hawaii cut the deficit to 23-20 on a solo block by Rosenthal, prompting the Beach to use a timeout.
Dickinson responded with his 14th kill and Long Beach State closed it out on its second set point on a Rosenthal hitting error.
The fourth set started with six consecutive ties before a double block from DiAeris McRaven and Kandev fueled a six-point Beach run for a 12-6 advantage before Hawaii came back to win it.
