Volleyball Warriors rally
Advertiser Staff
Driven by road rage, the University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team surged to a 31-33, 34-32, 34-32, 30-23 victory over UC Irvine before 405 in cozy Crawford Hall last night in Irvine, Calif.
The second-ranked Warriors, spurred by their ineffective early play and what they felt was inconsistent officiating, took out their frustrations on the No. 9 Anteaters.
"There was some serious intensity out there," UH coach Mike Wilton said of the match, the first of four in a row on this road trip.
UH, which improved to 15-3 overall and a Pacific Division-leading 10-2 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, plays at No. 3 UCLA tonight and tomorrow night. The rematch between UH and UC Irvine, now 9-11 and 5-8, is Saturday night in Crawford Hall.
The Warriors had difficulty holding onto leads and defending Anteater middle blocker Erick Helenihi in the first two games.
UH scored five of the first six points in the first game, and led by as much as 16-8 in the second. But the 6-foot-8 Helenihi served as a sledgehammer to the UH block, throwing down 12 kills with no hitting errors in the first two games.
The Anteaters' powerful serves led to sloppy UH passing, which drained the effectiveness from the Warriors' attempt at a quick-set offense.
Wilton, searching for combinations like a frantic safecracker, summoned Eyal Zimet, who had planned to rest because of a stress fracture in his left shin, for Tony Ching, and then later substituted Ching for Torry Tukuafu.
Then something clicked late in the third game, when the Warriors were down 29-25. Brenton Davis sizzled a shot off a block, then the Warriors scored on consecutive blocks to close to 29-28. UH tied it when a shot was first called out, then in. The UC Irvine coaches vehemently protested, with an assistant kicking a water cooler, but it was too late to douse the Warriors' momentum.
Costas Theocharidis led the Warriors with 26 kills.
"Very early (in the season), they would have lost that match," Wilton said. "They would panic. They just learned to hang tough together. They exercised some good patience."
