HONOLULU – The fourth-ranked University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team sent off its three seniors is dramatic fashion with a come-from-behind, five-set win over No. 5 UC Santa Barbara in the final regular season home match at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center. Set scores were 19-25, 25-20, 24-26, 25-18, 15-10.
The Rainbow Warriors (20-5, 5-3 BWC) rallied from a two sets to one deficit in front of the season's largest crowd of 6,744. The win moved Hawai'i into second place in the Big West Conference standings heading into the final week of the regular season.
UH won for the 12
th time over the Gauchos, including its eighth straight in Honolulu. The Warriors also finished with an undefeated regular season home record at 16-0 and won their 15
th straight Big West home match.
The Greek sensation of
Spyros Chakas and
Dimitrios Mouchlias each had 17 kills to lead UH while middle blocker
Guilherme Voss had a career-high 12 kills along with four of the team's nine blocks. Mouchlias also added three aces and four blocks while Chakas posted two aces and six digs.
Filip Humler came off the bench to give the Warriors a spark. The junior finished with seven kills, hitting .400 with two blocks.
After falling behind 2-1 in the match, UH was able to slow down the Gauchos' potent offense, which was hitting .412 through the first three sets. UCSB hit just .109 in the final two sets, including .000 in Set 5.
Haotian Xia recorded a match-high 21 kills, hitting .447 and six aces for the Gauchos (16-8, 5-4) while Ryan Wilcox added 15 kills and 10 digs.
After Hawai'i dropped Set 3 in a deuce game, the Warriors hit .393 in the make-or-break fourth set. With the score tied at 14, UH went on a 5-1 run, which included an ace by Mouchlias, to take a 19-15 lead. The Warriors then scored five of the final six points to take the set and send it to a decisive fifth game.
The Gauchos held an early two-point lead in the early going. UH scored three straight, helped by a pair of UCSB attack errors to regain the lead. After a Humler service error, the Warriors reeled off three more points, capped by
Keoni Thiim's second ace of the match, for a 9-6 lead. The Gauchos pulled within one at 10-9 but Hawai'i finished the set on a tear, scoring five the final six points including back-to-back kills by Mouchlias to end it.
The Warriors will close out the regular season with a pair of Big West matches at UC Irvine, April 15-16 in Irvine, Calif., before returning home to host the Big West Championship.
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