LONG BEACH, Calif. – The University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team came up short in its bid for the inaugural Big West Tournament championship, falling in straight set top-seeded Long Beach State, Saturday at the Walter Pyramid. Set scores were 25-23, 25-14, 25-19.
 
The second-seeded Rainbow Warriors (19-8) will now await word on whether they will earn an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament. The Beach (26-1), which avenged their only loss of the season to UH last week, earned the Big West's automatic bid and likely the top seed in the seven-team championship.
 
UH, which has never won a conference tournament title, hit for a season-low .152 for the match. The Warriors were led by opposite Rado Parapunov, who finished with 10 kills and was the only player in the match to reach double figures. Outside hitter Brett Rosenmeier had eight kills while Stijn van Tilburg added six kills.
 
The Beach was led by TJ DeFalco and Kyle Ensing, who each tallied eight kills. DeFalco also added four aces and four blocks while Ensing had two aces and six blocks.
 
LBSU hit .369 for the match with 10 aces and 10.5 blocks. Setter Josh Tuaniga was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player.
 
Back-to-back hitting errors by UH middle blocker Dalton Solbrig put LBSU up 14-11 in Set 1 but the Warriors answered right back with three straight capped by a Rosenmeier ace. The Beach ran their lead to 21-16 with a 4-0 run. UH fought off two set points and had a chance to pull even but Parapunov was blocked by Ensing and Nick Amado to give LBSU the 25-23 victory.
 
The Beach reeled off five straight points for a 10-4 lead early in Set 2. The lead was eight after back-to-back aces by Tuaniga and the Beach went ahead 19-8 after consecutive DeFalco aces. LBSU finished with five aces and hit .688 in the set in taking a 2-0 lead in the match.
 
LBSU scored the first seven points of Set 3 behind three UH hitting errors and an ace by Tuaniga. It would not get any better for the Warriors as they fell behind by as many as 10 at 15-5. UH slowly chipped away, closing to within 18-13 and 21-17 before the Beach pulled away to take the championship.