Warrior-Bruin rewind
First time since 2006 that UH has won the MPSF series with UCLA. Was very impressed that the Warriors were able to overcome a 0-3 hole and poor officiating. Here’s my breaking news story.
Brook Sedore put down a match-high 22 kills and No. 11 Hawaii upset No. 3 UCLA for a second straight night in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation volleyball play, prevailing 22-25, 25-18, 24-26, 25-16, 15-11 Saturday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.
Siki Zarkovic added 13 kills and three aces for the Rainbow Warriors (11-6, 9-5 MPSF). It was first time since 2006 that Hawaii took the conference series against the Bruins (13-4, 10-4).
Robart Page led UCLA with 16 kills and Gonzalo Quiroga added 15. Hawaii Baptist graduate Michael Fisher, a freshman outside hitter, finished with a career-high 13 kills over the 2 hours and 38 minutes.
A turnstile crowd of 2,714 (3,818) saw Hawaii trail 3-0 and 6-2 to start Set 5. The Rainbow Warriors rallied to tie at 6, the first of six ties in the final set.
Hawaii broke an 11-all deadlock on one of Taylor Averill’s 10 kills to jumpstart a 4-0 closing run. The Rainbow Warriors finished it out on a Page hitting error, an ace by Zarkovic and Sedore’s final kill.
Hawaii outblocked UCLA 10-7.5, with Nick West in on eight. The Rainbow Warriors finished with a 6-3 advantage in aces and 34-29 edge in digs in handing the Bruins consecutive losses for the first time this season..
Great win! UH played with a lot of grit & character tonight…
Not much to say. Excellent win tonight. Hoping they can do the same to UCI next week.
But that’s next week, tonight we celebrate. Woohoo!
SO, Letʻs See Them Ignore These Wins in The Rankings…
Will The Warriors Handle Def-Champs UCI?
They’ll do the same to UCI. GO WARRIORS.
Congrats!!!
My guess is that they’ll split with both UCI (next week) and BYU (the following weak).
PERHAPS they’ll lose twice to one of the aforementioned but NOT to both of them.
*At the very least that means 1-3 going forward.
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UCLA will still be in the six-team NCAA MVB tourney, however, come the end of the season.
These losses to HI are just the fire under their collective ‘okole they’ve needed.
A real team effort, Olsen had his best game of the season. Wade out coached the Olympic coach and the people in the stands supporting the singer was heart warming. Worst job of reffing ever. UCLA should not use the fact that they had their third string setter in there as an excuse because he was very good! Great weekend for volleyball.
Something has to be done about that terrible referee. Is there a reason why Fey isn’t starting over Olsen?
every set on friday night was tight … on saturday night, ucla weirdly disappeared for 2 sets, but when they were in it, they pulled out the tight sets, save the last one (which was of course the one that mattered). fisher gave them a 3rd offensive option that bantle couldn’t on friday night, and that made the difference in saturday night going 5.
these were 2 critical wins against a ucla team (which, injuries or not) is a top-half MPSF team. hawaii showed some tough character the past couple nights. they’re proving to be a better team at home than on the road, however. and that should be something the coaches should be concerned about.
sedore was just lights out all weekend, and everyone played well behind him. i’m liking the use of both liberos based on situational needs.
i was surprised at how poor ucla’s passing was at times, even when they went to a 4-person serve receive (which is kind of unusual for the men’s game).
Have to give credit to Nick West for his maturity as a player and a person. When he first came to Hawaii he seemed to have a chip on his shoulder (for whatever reason). Now, he seems to have cut out the outside distractions and upped his game.
Also, those refs were terrible. Amazing job by the Warriors to forget the bad calls and move forward.
Why do we always get “jobbed” by our own refs? Can we get new refs? Not renew these local yokels? The ball went off of the net and into the UCLA blocker’s forearm, two feet in front of the up ref, etc., etc., etc. I think these refs are so paranoid about being labeled “homers,” that they side with the visiting team on close calls. I thought those early calls in set five were going to cost us the match.
Was there a certain reason for the singer during the game. Like is she a mom or something? I won’t lie she wasn’t the best, but it was nice to see the crowd supporting her.
And I apolgize if I offended anyone by saying she wasn’t the best. Meant no harm at all.
11. It was Kanetake’s auntie. (: Goes to show how supportive and great the Aloha Spirit is.
Call on the pancake save was attrocious. The ball changed direction on the contact and no ref could see that!
12. Yes, Kolby’s auntie. I thought she sounded fine. Not her fault that the mic didn’t work during the national anthem. But nice that the crowd joined in to help her.
11. The up ref was the from the mainland. Thought he was very inconsistent both nights. As mentioned several weeks ago, the MPSF is sending out the up ref for the rest of the season.
Setaone, it was impressive that the players did move on. there have been UH teams in previous years that couldn’t and didn’t.
8. they switched liberos, went with the freshman Night 2. then used the other one from night 1 later in Set 1. agree their passing was poor. And as mentioned I think losing Rowe hurt them. You also need to give credit to UH servers for some of the poor passing.
Wasn’t the up ref Burt Fuller who Hawaii fans should be familiar with? Burt is a former Utah State head coach and applied for the asst. job at UH when Charlie Wade left the women’s program. I also believe he was with the UCLA men’s program for awhile. Burt is usually pretty good at this job.
what a magical night it was… soo much fun!!
19. yes it was Burt Fuller. mentioned that Friday & Saturday. And said both nights he was not having a good game. very inconsistent on the lift-no lift calls.
18. Grant Chalmers, the UCLA freshman libero, started and played the entire match on Friday night. He started Saturday night and played almost the entire match. Sequeira came in for a short period late in the match. I think it was in set 4. Sequeira had been the starting libero for most of the season, but supposedly got hurt a few matches back. Also, in the Saturday match, Speraw choose to go with the stronger offensive threat Fisher over the stronger passer Bantle.
22. you’re right. could have sworn that Sequeira got in Friday. I likely was looking at the box from the Outrigger.
Bantle didn’t do much Friday 2-3-9. Fisher didn’t play at all in that match.
Burt Fuller to me would be an excellent addition to UH. He is one of the few former coaches who I still think should be coaching D1
I tuned in when she was mid way through it and it was on tv, so maybe that’s why it didn’t sound right to me. They always sound different on tv. But it was nice to see everyone singing along and supporting her 🙂