UH continues march to another WAC title

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

SAN JOSE — Relentless in pursuit of much more than a WAC championship, 11th-ranked University of Hawai'i advanced to the WAC Volleyball Tournament final with a 30-18, 30-25, 30-18 victory over Fresno State yesterday.

Hawai'i's Kim Willoughby (3) collected 26 kills to give her a WAC-record 661 for the season yesterday. Associated Press

In that, they are not alone in the WAC, where the Wahine have won their past 57 league matches. Hawai'i will face San Jose State, whose last victory over UH came in 1993, in today's championship at the Spartans' Event Center.

Third-seeded SJSU swept second-seeded Nevada, 30-23, 30-18, 30-26, in the other semifinal.

It took the Wahine 11/2 hours and one serious scare to earn a shot at their fourth consecutive WAC title and the accompanying NCAA Tournament berth.

They separated themselves with a 9-1 run in the first game, pulling ahead 21-11 with Margaret Vakasausau and Kim Willoughby serving. Fresno officially signaled it was too frustrated to fight on during an 8-0 UH surge in the third game that was punctuated by five FSU hitting errors.

"Speaking as an outside hitter, it gets frustrating when people keep digging your balls," said Willoughby, who became the WAC's most prolific single-season hitter last night. "We started touching a lot of balls versus a stuff block and we'll take that. It slows the ball down and we can dig it. After a while hitters get frustrated and start hitting shots that aren't even there."

The Wahine's relentlessness on defense, and their grace under second-game pressure, proved too tough. The Bulldog offense stayed with Hawai'i to 22-all in Game 2 before FSU's defense blinked.

A missed serve and two kills from Maja Gustin gave UH three quick points. Willoughby's kills Nos. 653, 654 and 655 silenced any thought of a Bulldog rally and gave her the WAC season record.

"Second game should have been ours," said Shauna McQuaid, FSU's lone senior. "A couple balls hit the floor that shouldn't have."

FSU wouldn't get another chance, with Willoughby (26 kills), Gustin (16) and Jennifer Carey (8) all hitting better than .400 and taking turns blasting volleyballs off FSU junior Christy Burnett.

Wahine Lauren Duggins also got tagged, by McQuaid — Willoughby went to Duggins and told her, "I'll never let that happen again, promise" — but the Wahine even won the battle of the bruises.

And ultimately it was Hawai'i's defense that broke the Bulldogs' spirit.

"Hawai'i is unreal," McQuaid said. "Hawai'i picks up balls you think are going to fall 10 out of 10 times."

Added Burnett: "There's things that work against Hawai'i, but you've got to find them and keep going after them. As far as their defensive players ...I thought Kim Willoughby played really well in the backcourt. She keeps going after the ball. That might have been the difference between our defense and theirs."

UH coach Dave Shoji called his first timeout of the tournament when Fresno cut an early deficit to one in Game 3. His team's 8-0 outburst came two serves later.

"I know the players just want to win the WAC title," Shoji said. "We talk about it all year so that's a big motivation. We also want to start, as they say, peaking for the playoffs. Start establishing solid play in all phases of the game.

"As a coach it's really hard to find something to motivate our team, but they seem to motivate themselves, because I think they just love to play volleyball. They don't find this tedious. They like playing so it's been really easy to coach."

And really hard for the rest of the WAC to coach against. Hawai'i hasn't even lost a game in three weeks, a streak of 30 straight.

"It's just hard to keep up because Hawai'i is so strong in so many areas you almost have to play a perfect match," Fresno coach Lindy Vivas said. "When we were playing at the top of our game we were doing well. It's just hard to maintain that."

QUICK SETS: Today's championship will be broadcast live on KCCN (1420 AM) beginning at 11 a.m. HST. ... The 2002 WAC Volleyball Tournament will be in Reno, Nev., the week before Thanksgiving. ... All the semifinal teams were from the Western Division. ... Kim Willoughby now has 661 kills this year to break an 11-year-old WAC record, set by BYU's Tea Nieminen, of 653. Teee Williams holds the UH record of 688, set in 1988.