Hawai'i volleyball team stays undefeated
Advertiser Staff
Alicia Arnott put third-ranked Hawai'i on her slender shoulders yesterday in Dallas, lifting the unbeaten Rainbow Wahine to a WAC win over SMU with a career-high 30 kills. Arnott, a sophomore out of La Pietra in Honolulu, added 19 digs and hit .463.
The scores were 27-30, 30-27, 30-20, 30-27, before a Kids Day volleyball crowd of 1,440 at Moody Coliseum. The Mustangs (9-8, 3-4 WAC) had been averaging a little over 200 in attendance.
Arnott
The kids had plenty to cheer about early. Hawai'i (16-0, 6-0) lost Game 1 for the first time this season despite 10 kills from Arnott. It was only the second game SMU has taken off the 'Bows in 10 meetings.
The Mustangs did it with what UH coach Dave Shoji called the toughest serving his team has seen this season. They also jumped on a Hawai'i team that came out tentative and could not overcome early passing problems, or block a ball.
The Rainbows lost seven straight points to fall behind 12-4 to start the match. Their own 12-5 run caught the Mustangs at 22. But, for one of the few times this year, UH was outplayed in the closing moments, as SMU scored five of the final seven points.
The Rainbows just revved up their rally again, behind Arnott, to start Game 2.
"Whenever you lose Game 1 you can either dig yourself another hole or come back strong and try to get out of the hole," Shoji said. "We were tough enough to come back. It was never really good on our part. The match was a little up and down. Obviously Arnott was the reason we won the match. If we didn't get a big match out of her, we'd probably go down. We just got enough out of everyone else."
Shoji started making changes in the second game. He replaced libero Ashley Watanabe with Teisa Fotu to stabilize the ballhandling. Fotu finished with a match-high 20 digs. Up 14-11, Shoji swapped freshmen middles, bringing in Kari Gregory for Juliana Sanders, hitting negative .200.
Hawai'i constructed a 24-16 advantage. The Mustangs cut that in half immediately, then crept within 27-25 a little later. Victoria Prince and Kanoe Kamana'o stopped that surge with a rare Hawai'i stuff and one of Prince's 13 kills gave UH game point. SMU held it off twice before going down to Arnott's 16th kill.
She credited her big match to the middles keeping SMU's block away from her. Shoji was more specific.
"Alicia had her best match," he said. "She elevated, hit the ball with a lot of pace and hit some smart shots."
The 'Bows blasted SMU in Game 3. With Kamana'o serving, they scored five straight to pull ahead 18-11. Arnott broke her previous career high by blasting her 21st kill in the midst of the surge.
Hawai'i hammered out a 10-5 advantage to start a roller-coaster fourth game. The Mustangs caught UH at 13. The Rainbows scored eight straight with Prince serving, but two SMU surges put it ahead 25-24 soon after.
Prince crushed a free ball to tie it at 25. It was tied again at 26, before kills by Prince and Arnott, and a hitting error by SMU, gave the 'Bows match point. After Beth Karasek's 16th kill, Arnott buried it.
NOTES:
• SMU's Beth Karasek, the only senior starter for either team, collected her 12th double-double with 16 kills and as many digs. She's had a double-double in all seven WAC matches.
• Nevada outlasted Boise State 17-15 in the fifth game yesterday in Idaho. The Broncos were ahead 14-10 in the final game, and had five match points.
• UH ran its streaks to 96 straight against WAC opponents and 188 against unranked opponents. It has also won its last 29 regular-season road matches.
• The Rainbow Wahine, leader of the WAC West, faces East leader Rice Thursday at the Stan Sheriff Center. The Owls are off to their best start at 18-2 and have won all seven conference matches.
