Posted on: Saturday, January 1, 2005

UH volleyball tops charts in online voting

Advertiser Staff

The people's choice — or the online voters anyway — for the top story in 2004 was UH women's volleyball.

UH volleyball got 1,181 votes to beat out Chad Owens' accomplishments, which got 1,067 votes.

Bryan Clay, which was The Advertiser Staff's top story, was No. 6 in online voting.

Owens was voted as Hawai'i's athlete of the year, edging volleyball star Kanoe Kamana'o in a highly contested voting.

Owens got 2,360 votes to Kamana'o's 2,334.

Clay was The Advertiser's athlete of the year for 2004.

Owens was named second team All-American as a receiver and punt returner by Sports Illustrated and won the Mosi Tatupu Award.

He had a school-record five punt returns for touchdowns in 2004. He also had a school-record 102 catches for 1,281 yards and 17 touchdowns. Owens, along with quarterback Tim Chang, ignited UH's comeback by The Advertiser and online voters agreed on one thing: UH volleyball's Dave Shoji was the coach of the year.

While The Advertiser voting was clear-cut, Shoji had to edge out June Jones in online voting. Shoji had 629 votes to Jones' 566.