Hawai'i 5-0 in volleyball
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
Settle in. Hawai'i has yet to lose and still it is obvious this is going to be a wild volleyball ride.
The 11th-ranked Rainbow Wahine scored almost no style points last night, yet outlasted 17th-ranked Santa Clara, 30-27, 28-30, 30-27, 30-28. In danger of going to a fifth game for the third time this season, Hawai'i rallied from a 25-23 deficit in the fourth.
The 'Bows (5-0) play third-ranked UCLA for the Challenge championship tonight. The unbeaten Bruins, with just one player missing from last year's elite-eight team, have to feel confident after watching the brand-new 'Bows stagger the past two days.
Two first-year players fueled Hawai'i's latest, greatest comeback before 4,717 last night at Stan Sheriff Center. Washington State transfer Victoria Prince burned the Broncos with 20 kills and hit .410. Freshman Tara Hittle added 17 kills to finish them off when the UH left-side hitters, so effective Thursday, struggled.
"Hittle caught fire," Santa Clara coach Jon Wallace said. "I told our team if we play Hawai'i the way they played last night against Southwest Missouri — being one-dimensional just setting balls outside — I really like our chances. But Hittle got hot and so did Prince. Prince got more hot that we thought."
And Hawai'i, with seven seniors missing from last year's final-four team, found a way to win. Again.
"I don't know how we're doing it," UH coach Dave Shoji admitted. "Teams let us hang around. It's too early to say we have a lot of heart. Obviously we've played hard and managed to win. I think they just play and don't feel pressure to win. That's one reason I think they're doing OK."
In the first two weeks of the season, the 'Bows have given away points in bundles, let opponents back in matches and gone games without a block. But they have won every point they absolutely had to have.
On the final serve last night, Hawai'i's Ashley Watanabe let the ball go straight through her hands toward the rear bleachers. Alicia Arnott somehow sent the ball in the right direction before she flew off the court and Kanoe Kamana'o whacked it over the net. Susie Boogaard eventually buried it and the Broncos with her 13th kill.
"We really stick together, especially when times are tough," Hittle said. "It seems like we pull together and know what we need to do. So we're able to come out with wins like this."
The Broncos (3-2), coming off six straight NCAA Tournament appearances, are almost as inexperienced as Hawai'i and just as tenacious. They went down swinging after rolling with the 'Bows' best punches early in the match. From the middle of the first game on, both teams acted their young age with the exception of spectacular defense and raucous rallies.
"The goofy plays are going to be around another couple weeks, then they'll go away," Wallace said. "Both teams have young girls that ... like the net stuff, they just kind of swing their arms and crazy things go on. But both teams have really good ball control and diggers and get balls up."
The Rainbow Wahine shut out the Broncos' best hitter — Toni Muratore was averaging four kills a game — in the first game and still struggled to finish. They rallied from a 25-21 deficit in the second, but couldn't tie it. Game 3 was tied 10 times until Hawai'i broke from 25-all with three straight points and won the game on Prince's 14th kill.
In the fourth, Boogaard and Arnott didn't get their first kills until deep in the game, but hung in to help their younger teammates hang on. In the end, all five Hawai'i hitters had at least 11 kills and Kari Gregory, another freshman, was in on six of the seven UH stuffs.
It was just enough, yet again.
"We're not good enough yet in the skill department to hammer teams," Shoji said. "We'll make some runs, but we're always getting runs made on us. Where we get in trouble mostly is we don't block well enough to stop runs. ... I don't know how we're doing it."
In the opener, UCLA (6-0) stopped Southwest Missouri State (5-2), 30-11, 30-24, 30-24. The Bruins hit .298 to the Bears' .032, led by Brittany Ringel's 10 kills and .409 percentage.
A trio of SWS players had seven kills, but every Bear hit below .200. UCLA transfer Nana Meriwether was a major reason why. She dropped in on 14 of UCLA's 17 blocks. That tied the Bruins' record for a three-game match, set by Marissa Hatchett in 1989 — before rally scoring.
Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8043.
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