HONOLULU – The fourth-ranked University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team scored the final five points of the fifth set for a stunning comeback over Harvard Friday to complete a two-match series sweep at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center. Set scores were 25-17, 25-27, 25-15, 21-25, 16-14
The Rainbow Warriors (4-0) swept their second straight series to remain undefeated on the season. UH almost saw the Crimson rally from a 2-1 set deficit in the match and fell behind 14-11 in the fifth frame. After a kill by
Justin Todd,
Finn Kearney came off the bench as a serving sub and the Warriors scored four straight points off his serve including a block solo by Todd on UH's match point.
Todd, a redshirt freshman from Houston, Texas, made his first career start and had one kill and two blocks during UH's 5-0 run to close out the match. He finished with four kills, two aces, and five blocks. The lefty Kearney totaled four kills, one ace, three digs, and two blocks.
UH was led by opposite
Kristian Titriyski, who had a match-high 18 kills, hitting .378. The Bulgarian tallied 10 of his 18 kills in the final two sets and added four aces and six blocks. Outside hitter
Adrien Roure recorded 14 kills, three digs, and three blocks and middle blocker
Kurt Nusterer had a career-high nine kills, hitting .667 with six blocks.
As a team, Hawai'i hit .395 for the match along with season-highs of 15.5 blocks and eight aces. Setter
Tread Rosenthal dished out 47 assists along with six kills, seven digs, and four blocks.
The Crimson (0-2) were led by Owen Fanning and Logan Shepherd, who each had 17 kills. Shepherd added 12 digs and three aces.
The teams split the first two sets, with the Crimson rallying late in Set 2 to even the match at a set a piece. UH came out firing in Set 3, hitting .455 and finishing with three aces and 3.5 blocks but the Crimson would not go away and out-scored Hawai'i 8-2 to close out Set 4.
Harvard took control of the fifth and deciding set with a 5-1 run that gave them an 11-8 cushion. UH pulled within one at 12-11 after a Titriyski solo block but the Crimson answered with back-to-back points to get to match point setting the stage for Hawai'i's heroics.
UH concludes its six-match season-opening homestand with a pair of matches against Princeton, Wednesday, Jan. 15 and Friday, Jan. 17 at SimpliFi Arena.
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