Warriors frustrated by UC Santa Barbara

By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

Refusing to defuse, visiting UC Santa Barbara fought its way to a 30-25, 23-30, 30-23, 20-30, 18-16 men's volleyball victory over Hawai'i last night in the Stan Sheriff Center.

Hawai'i's Kyle Klinger tries to get a shot past UC Santa Barbara's Michael Kennedy, right. Hawai'i lost the fifth game 18-16 after taking a 5-0 lead. The Gauchos' Evan Patak had 31 kills in 63 attempts, and dominated the fifth game. Andrew Shimabuku • The Honolulu Advertiser

The Warriors need to win three of their final four matches — including two on the road against sizzling Long Beach State — to earn one of the top four seeds and host in the opening round of the MPSF playoffs.

To do so, the Warriors will have to rebound from last night's deflating outcome.

"It was a tough loss for us," said UH left-side hitter Pedro Azenha, who pounded 24 kills in an arm-numbing 55 swings. "I don't think a team that wants to win a national championship can lose a fifth game after leading 5-0. We have to step up. That can happen again, and it's happened more than once already. I'm tired of it. I know everybody else is tired of it."

Azenha nearly carried the Warriors with his powerful serves. In the final two games, the Warriors scored 12 points on the 17 plays started by his serves.

In building a 5-0 lead in Game 5, Azenha's serves forced the Gauchos to burn a timeout and switch passers.

The Gauchos finally got a sideout, and then turned to the nation's most prolific attacker, Evan Patak, a 6-foot-8, 260-pound opposite hitter.

Earlier in the match, setter Bart Kowalski tried to evenly distribute the sets. But as the match progressed, and particularly in Game 5, Kowalski said: "There's no secret Evan Patak is our guy. He's the stud. I knew how it was going to be, and Hawai'i knew it, too, but I was going to go to Evan Patak."

With a full swing, Patak's shots have been timed at more than 65 mph. His hit-'em-high, hit-'em-hard motion does not create a top spin, making it seem as if he is using a weighted ball.

"He hit a heavy, heavy ball that's tough to dig," Kowalski said. "When he hits it, it sounds like thunder."

Patak finished with a match-high 31 kills in 63 swings. In Game 5, he had seven kills in 14 swings, including a ricochet off the outstretched block of Mauli'a LaBarre and Azenha for match point.

"When I get fired up, I want the ball, and I want to be the guy who has the opportunity to make something happen," Patak said. "Bart was dishing some nice sets. I was feeling good, swinging high and hard, and we got the win. We kept battling back. It was a little slugfest."

The turning point was when Azenha stepped behind the service line, with UH ahead 11-10 in Game 5. UCSB won the point when Patak's crossing shot was ruled to have landed inside the left corner, a few feet from Azenha.

"I thought it was out," Azenha said. "It looked out."

Azenha would not serve again, and UH did not score a point in the fifth game when his five teammates served.

"It was kind of a battle between two bruisers," UCSB coach Ken Preston said of Patak and Azenha. "They're both really good hitters. I was proud of my guys. We played a lot of different people, and they did it. Rally scoring is a weird game sometimes. You think you might have it and all of a sudden there are a couple of breaks and it's a different game."

Patak said: "We just wanted to battle, baby."

The Warriors, meanwhile, appeared to be emotionally spent.

The Gauchos "played like their backs were against the wall, and I suppose it was," UH coach Mike Wilton said. "I'm not sure we felt the same urgency. I don't think we did, and we paid dearly for it."

Wilton was annoyed with other parts of the Warriors' performance. Their effort in Game 1 was overshadowed by four net violations, what Wilton described as "unbelievably stupid errors."

Azenha and left-side hitter Matt Bender (23 kills) could not offset the inconsistency from the third outside position. Matt Carere hit .000 in the first game, and Lauri Hakala passed effectively but committed four errors in six serves, including one when UH was leading, 10-8.

Reach Stephen Tsai at stsai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8051.