HONOLULU – The fourth-ranked University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team put away 12
th-ranked Lewis in straight sets, Thursday in the first of two non-conference matches at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
The Rainbow Warriors (15-3) extended their regular season home win streak to 18 matches with the win and improved to 11-0 at home this season. UH hit .424 for the match with five aces and 4.5 blocks and held the Flyers to .222 hitting. The Warriors also held the nation's second-leading attacker Tyler Mitchem to .250 hitting and seven kills.
The Greek connection of outside hitter
Spyros Chakas (14) and opposite
Dimitrios Mouchlias (12) combined for 26 of the team's 47 kills and each hit over .360 on the night. Chakas added two aces and six digs while Mouchlias had two blocks.
Middle blockers Giulherme Voss and
Max Rosenfeld each tallied six kills while setter
Jakob Thelle dished out 40 assists and added two more aces to his nation's leading 37 on the season.
Max Roquet had 11 kills to lead the Flyers (10-7).
In Set 1, UH jumped all over Lewis, who didn't help themselves with four early hitting errors. An ace by Kāna'i Akana put UH on top 16-8 and the Warriors finished the set hitting .750 with 15 kills in 20 attempts and no errors and siding-out at 100 percent.
UH did not commit its first attack error until its 29
th attack attempt when already leading 8-4 in Set 2. The lead was eight at 15-7 at the media timeout until UH let the Flyers back in the match. Hawai'i committed seven attack errors and saw its lead dwindle to one at 22-21. But a Lewis hitting error and kills by Chakas and Mouchlias ended the set.
Hawai'i again jumped out to a big lead in Set 3, holding a 15-8 advantage. The Flyers blocked Mouchlias to close to within three at 21-18 but a kill by Voss and block by Mouchlias made it 23-18. After a Lewis kill, Mouchlias gave UH aloha ball and Galloway's sixth kill ended the match.
The teams play again Saturday at 7:00 p.m.
#HawaiiMVB
