UH outlasts Penn State in 5

By Stephen Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

For opening night, the University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team turned to its role players.

Hawai'i outside hitter Matt Bender avoids the Penn State double block in the second game to score one of his 12 kills. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

The scores were 30-21, 30-28, 24-30, 38-40, 15-8.

The Warriors entered with a revised plan in which opposite hitters Pedro Azenha and Matt Bender played in the same lineup. Bender was one of the two outside hitters positioned mostly on the left side.

But the Warriors received a boost from Delgado, whose primary role is to pass, and Hakala, who is recovering from a severely sprained left ankle.

"Everybody talks about our big dynamic players, but it's those role players who came through huge for us," UH setter Brian Beckwith said.

Delgado, a fourth-year junior, had nine digs and a career-high 20 kills.

"I wanted to proved myself," Delgado said. "Things will only get better. Right now, I feel comfortable on the court. Brian feels more comfortable with me."

Beckwith and Delgado have developed an unstated agreement. Delgado tries to loft high passes to the 6-foot-6 Beckwith, making it easier to evenly distribute the offense.

"I'm a tall guy, and I really like to get the pass high," Beckwith said. "He really emphasizes passing high to me."

In exchange, Beckwith often runs volleyball's version of a give-and-go by parlaying the pass into a high set to Delgado. At 6 feet 3, Delgado tries to ricochet shots off the block or past a slow-reacting defender.

"He likes to get up there and exploit their weaknesses," Beckwith said.

Hakala was available on a need-to-play basis. UH's slump in Games 3 and 4 apparently qualified as an emergency situation.

"I was tanking in Game 4," said Bender, who had 12 kills but committed six attack errors and hit .176. He also had difficulty with his passing and defense.

With the Warriors down 12-10 in Game 4, coach Mike Wilton summoned Hakala, whose left ankle was wrapped with tape and a brace. Hakala had three kills in Game 4 and two in the first-to-15 final game. He also stabilized the Warriors' passing and kept the Nittany Lions off balance with his darting jump serves.

"Sometimes," said Hakala, a sophomore from Finland, "things go your way. I was jumping around (on the sideline) to keep warm. I knew I would be OK when I got my first kill."

Whatever the Warriors did correctly in the first two games wore off during the 10-minute intermission between Games 2 and 3. The extended break, requested by the UH marketing department, is seven minutes longer than the intermission between the other games.

"Our problem, in the past, has been coming out of that tunnel (from the locker room to the court) for Game 3 and being dead," Beckwith said. "That's something we have to work on. We'll work ourselves dead if we keep going to these five-game matches. Good teams put teams away. That's what we're going to have to learn to do."

Starting in Game 3, the Nittany Lions ran more combinations — decoying with one hitter and attacking with another — and running quick sets to middle hitters Keith Kowal (10 kills) and 6-foot-9 Nate Meerstein (15 kills).

Opposite hitter Matt Proper also found points off angle shots.

But Hakala, Delgado and libero Alfred Reft were able to cover Proper, and by Game 5, he was out of ammunition.

"Proper has stretches," Penn State coach Mark Pavlik said. "There are times when he dominates and there are times when he just disappears."

Proper, who took 35 swings, had 14 kills, but only two in Game 5.

"Not overjoyed with the outcome, pleased with the process," Pavlik said. "In a week, nobody's going to remember. Our sights are set on late April and early May."

Brigham Young def. Lewis, 3-1: The defending national champion Cougars overcame self-inflicted mistakes and the pesky Flyers to win their season opener, 30-26, 30-32, 34-32, 32-30.

The Cougars, who had new starters at six of the seven positions, gave away 32 points on attack errors and 23 on service mistakes.

"I thought we'd have less," BYU coach Tom Peterson said. "Everybody talks about the number of (new) starters, but we have experienced volleyball players."

Victor Batista, who moved from middle to outside hitter, led the Cougars with 18 kills and seven digs. But he typified BYU's hit-or-miss performance. He had 12 attack errors.

"We have too many ups and downs," he said. "We can't have that many downs. We have to play on a straight line."

The Flyers had entered with three practices — one in Romeoville, Ill., and two in Honolulu.

"We didn't have much time to get together," outside hitter Jeff Soler said. "We had problems with the little things, but the little things are the ones that kill you. We had a lot of serve/receive errors, a lot of service errors. If we had minimized those, we would have won those games easily."

The Flyers have emerged from a troubled year. An internal investigation into the eligibility of some players led to the school stripping the volleyball team of its 2003 national championship. Head coach Dave Deuser resigned during the investigation. As part of their self-imposed punishment, the Flyers will not participate in the postseason.

But coach Dan Friend said the Flyers' goal is to win their league's regular-season title. "We want to show we belong with the best," Friend said. "After this (match against BYU), I think we do."

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