HONOLULU – The University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team advanced to the Big West Championship match after a straight-set win over UC Santa Barbara in the semifinals, Friday night at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center. Set scores were 25-18, 26-24, 25-14.
The second-seeded Rainbow Warriors (23-5) will face top-seeded Long Beach State in Saturday's championship match. The title match is a rematch of the 2019 Big West championship won by Hawai'i in five sets at SimpliFi Arena. The Beach won both regular season matches over the Warriors in Long Beach earlier this month.
Hawai'i dominated the Gauchos (19-9) at the net with 13 team blocks while hitting for a .388 percentage.
Dimitrios Mouchlias had a match-high 15 kills, hitting .419 while
Guilherme Voss tallied seven blocks.
Ryan Wilcox had 13 kills to lead the Gauchos.
UH's outside hitters –
Spyros Chakas and
Chaz Galloway – combined for 18 kills, nine digs, and seven blocks. Chakas tallied 11 kills, two aces and five blocks while Galloway returned to the starting line-up and posted seven kills, seven digs, and two blocks.
Hawai'i jumped out to a 5-1 advantage in Set 1 and extended the lead to 14-7 at the halfway point. The Gauchos used a 4-1 run to pull within four but the Warriors regrouped and made it 18-12 after an ace by Mouchlias. UH hit .444 in the frame with 6.5 blocks.
The Warriors led 15-11 in Set 2 before the Gauchos rallied to tie it at 16 after back-to-back aces by Wilcox. UCSB led 19-17 before the Warriors went on a 6-2 run for a 23-21 lead. The Gauchos fended off two set points before the Warriors closed it out with a kill by Chakas and a
Jakob Thelle-
Cole Hogland double block.
UH trailed 8-7 in Set 3 before a 4-0 run gave them an 11-8 lead. The Warriors extended the lead to 16-10 after another four-point spurt highlighted by consecutive aces by Chakas then went on an 8-2 run to close out the match.
In the day's earlier semifinal, top-seeded Long Beach State defeated UC Irvine in four sets, 22-25, 25-23, 25-1929-27. Alex Nikolov had a match-high 28 kills for the Beach (20-4), who will be seeking their second Big West Tournament title. Francesco Sani had a team-high 21 kills for the Anteaters (11-16).
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