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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, October 2, 2009

Rainbow Wahine sweep by LaTech


Advertiser Staff

A night after University of Hawai'i football failed in Ruston, La., the fourth-ranked Rainbow Wahine volleyball team rose up and leveled Louisiana Tech.

Hawai'i ran its winning streak to eight with a 25-11, 25-18, 25-12 Western Athletic Conference victory. The scores were precisely as one-sided as the match looked to 387 at the Thomas Assembly Center.

The Rainbow Wahine (12-2, 3-0 WAC) have not lost a match or a set since Sept. 6. The Techsters (11-8, 1-2), who just won their first WAC match in 27 tries, did not come close to stopping either streak last night.

"I thought we hit for a real good percentage, passed really well and served really well," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "We got off to a really good start and just broke their spirit. It was fairly easy after that."

The 'Bows' attack was again remarkably balanced. All seven attackers who played had at least three kills. The five who started all had at least one by the time Kanani Danielson made it 13-4 in the opening set,

Hawai'i out-hit LaTech .487 to .154 with senior Aneli Cubi-Otineru going for a match-high 10 kills and senior Amber Kaufman a scorching 9-for-12 for a .750 percentage.

Hawai'i also out-aced LaTech 10-3 as Danielson had a career-high three — two more than she had all season and five fewer than all last year.

For the second straight match, the Rainbow Wahine were on such a good roll that even the reserves were spectacular.

Backup middle Alexis Forsythe had five kills in the final set, for the third consecutive match. The sophomore transfer is now hitting .569 for the season.

Playing in front of her parents, who drove 6 hours from Arkansas to watch the two-day UH football/volleyball doubleheader, Catherine Fowler started the final set and drilled three kills and two blocks to double her season totals.

Jayme Lee was the libero in the third and collected four digs and two aces, serving the final seven points

Hawai'i scored nine of the first 10 points in Set 2 and 14 of the night's final 16, hitting a season-best .667 in Set 3 and stuffing the final two balls.

UH had just four blocks in the match, but frustrated Nataliya Panova, the Techsters' best attacker, into .053 hitting with just four kills.

Hawai'i's performance bore absolutely no resemblance to what the team watched on the football field Wednesday.

"Maybe that fired us up a little bit to watch the football team get beat," Shoji said. "The girls were definitely on edge when that happened."

Hawai'i plays at New Mexico State tomorrow. The Rainbows and Aggies shared last year's regular-season WAC title and NMSU has beaten Hawai'i twice in the last three years.

NOTES

Hawai'i's match at Fresno State Oct. 29 is one of three regular-season WAC matches that will be televised on ESPNU, the conference announced. The network will also show the WAC Tournament championship match Nov. 25 from Las Vegas. The other WAC matches on TV will be Idaho at Utah State (Oct. 19) and FSU at New Mexico State (Oct. 22).

ESPN 1420 AM will broadcast tomorrow's match beginning at 3 p.m. HST. Live statistics should be available at www.nmstatesports.com.

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