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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, February 27, 2005

Hawai'i sweeps by No. 1 UCLA

By Joseph D'Hippolito
Special to The Advertiser

LOS ANGELES — The University of Hawai'i will return home with a share of first place in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation after sweeping the nation's top-ranked men's volleyball team on the road last night.

The Warriors took 90 minutes to earn a 30-25, 30-26, 30-25 victory over UCLA in front of 1,829 — the largest men's volleyball crowd at Pauley Pavilion this year.

The victory put UH (11-2, 9-1) into a first-place tie with idle Pepperdine. The Warriors will play the Waves on Wednesday night and Friday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.

Defeating the Bruins (15-2, 11-2) also provided a jolt of much-needed confidence.

"It's a really big uplift," said 6-foot-8 middle blocker Kyle Klinger, who made his first start in a month after getting 10 kills Friday night. "We knew we were going to come in here and see exactly where we're at. We really didn't know where we were at before this match.

"Now, we know we can hang with and beat anybody. I think we really showed we're a championship team this weekend."

Intensifying the victory's significance was it was only the Warriors' fifth in 25 matches at Pauley Pavilion, where the NCAA championships will take place in May.

"We walk out of here with a good feeling about this place," UH coach Mike Wilton said, "and with the thought that we'd like to come back here in May to play again."

Matt Bender and Brian Beckwith led the offense. Bender hit .625 while pounding 16 kills and Beckwith passed for 40 assists. Pedro Azenha added 11 kills, as the Warriors hit .360.

"Matt Bender was huge," Wilton said. "He hit over .600, which is unbelievable for an outside hitter. Beckwith was wonderful. He located very well and he ran a nice offense."

Bender said he believes that Beckwith enabled him to experience something unusual in volleyball.

"I guess it's weird to feel comfortable on someone else's floor but I felt really comfortable," Bender said. "It's all Beckwith — great setting. That's everything."

As a result, Bender, a junior from Tucson, Ariz., could exploit anything he saw on the Bruins' side of the net.

"On inside sets a lot of times, they wouldn't stay quite as far in on the block," Becker said. "I had open tips when the middle blockers were in certain positions in the back row — and we run a pretty quick offense, so it gives me a lot of tooling down the line if I feel like doing it."

Defensively, the Warriors dominated at the net and outblocked UCLA, 14-4. Mauli'a La Barre had a match-high six block assists, while Bender had a solo block and four block assists.

UH also stifled the Bruins' leading hitters. Jonathan Acosta had eight kills after getting 15 on Friday night. Paul Johnson went from 17 kills to 10 and Steve Klosterman, who punched a match-high 20 kills Friday night, finished with eight.

"The biggest thing is that we got to see who their key hitters were," Klinger said. "Coming in, we weren't really sure exactly who they were going to go to. But we focused on them and took them out of the game as much as we could."

UCLA, which began the week fourth nationally in hitting percentage (.345), hit .265 for the match and made 23 hitting errors.