2 University of Hawaii volleyball players, Rado Parapunov and Gage Worsley honored for No. 1 Hawaii

JAMM AQUINO/JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
Hawaii opposite Rado Parapunov (19) puts a kill past Concordia-Irvine outside hitter Parker Maki (14) and middle blocker Hunter Howell (7) during the second set of a men’s NCAA volleyball game on Friday, January 11, 2019 at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu.

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JAMM AQUINO/JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM

Hawaii opposite Rado Parapunov (19) puts a kill past Concordia-Irvine outside hitter Parker Maki (14) and middle blocker Hunter Howell (7) during the second set of a men’s NCAA volleyball game on Friday, January 11, 2019 at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu.

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Gage Worsley

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Rado Parapunov’s highest kill total of the season and Gage Worsley’s most productive match of his career helped the Hawaii duo earn conference honors on Monday.

Two days after the top-ranked Rainbow Warriors pulled out a five-set victory over No. 7 Long Beach State, Parapunov added to his league record with the 13th Big West men’s volleyball Player of the Week award of his career. Worsley was named Defensive Player of the Week for the fifth time in his career and second time this season.

All three of the Big West’s weekly awards came out of the UH-LBSU series, with Beach outside hitter Clarke Godbold named Freshman of the Week.

Parapunov picked up his third player of the week honor of the season after leading the Warriors in kills in the four-set victory over LBSU last Friday and the five-set duel on Saturday. He put down 17 in the opener and finished with 27 (three short of his career high) while hitting .321 on Saturday.

Parapunov, who ranks third nationally with 4.46 kills per set, also had two aces in each match, the last helping the Warriors take command early in Saturday’s fifth set, and was in on 10 blocks in the series.

Worsley came up with 31 digs and had one error in 58 serve-receive attempts against The Beach. He had a season-high 14 digs in Friday’s match and set a career best with 17 in UH’s 24-26, 32-30, 25-17, 20-25, 15-8 win on Saturday. He received serve 39 times with one error and had five assists in the match.

“Just the organization on serve-receive and defense, he’s our leader, in constant communication with everybody,” Parapunov said of Worsley after the match. “Best libero in the country, simple.”

Worsley ranks seventh in the nation with 2.46 digs per set.

Poll watching

The top of the NVA/AVCA Division I-II Men’s Coaches Poll remained unchanged, with the Rainbow Warriors (11-0, 6-0 Big West) at No. 1 for the sixth straight week with 15 of 16 first-place votes. BYU (16-2) and UC Santa Barbara (10-4) follow.

After becoming the first team to win multiple sets in a series against UH this season, Long Beach State (3-3) moved from seventh into a tie for sixth with UCLA (13-4).

UH is also first in the NCAA’s Rating Percentage Index, followed by Lewis and BYU.

The Warriors embark on their final road trip of the regular season this week and play at Cal State Northridge (1-5, 1-5) on Friday and Saturday.