Hawaii completes second sweep of Missouri S&T
Feb. 24—Back to full strength, the Hawaii men's volleyball team made sure Missouri S &T had its hands full for a second straight night.
Back to full strength, the Hawaii men's volleyball team made sure Missouri S &T had its hands full for a second straight night.
Senior Spyros Chakas had six kills in seven attempts in the opening set and the third-ranked Rainbow Warriors swept the Miners 25-14, 25-18, 25-17 on Friday night to finish the month of February dropping only one out of 19 sets played.
A SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 3, 903 saw Hawaii (12-1 ) use 13 players in its 11th straight win.
Chaz Galloway had a team-high nine kills and freshman Tread Rosenthal, who served the first eight Hawaii points of the match, had a match-high 24 assists, three aces and two digs in two sets.
Middle Kurt Nusterer matched Rosenthal with three aces and the Rainbow Warriors finished with 12 in the match.
"We talked about putting more service pressure on them, " Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said. "We're going to have to be this combination of efficient and sustained pressure. Twelve aces is getting after it."
Chakas, who had sat out Hawaii's first three matches of the month against unranked opponents, made a brief appearance in the first set and moved ahead of teammate Alaka'i Todd into second place in the country with a.438 hitting percentage.
Junior middle Zachary Thompson, a Punahou alum who played four seasons at UC Santa Cruz, made his UH debut in the second set and had four kills in four swings.
"I grew up around this. I moved here when I was 8 and it was awesome, " Thompson said. "It's a lot different (here ). A lot of bigger people here than my old school. I went from being the tallest to the shortest. My setter is 6-10 now and my old setter was 5-10."
Guilherme Voss added an efficient four kills in five swings in the first set and Galloway also had two aces.
Earlier this month, Nusterer served 17 straight points for Hawaii in a win over Tusculum.
Rosenthal looked like he wanted to top that streak to open Friday's match, rattling off the first eight points for Hawaii with two aces.
He looked to have his third ace of the run off a Miners player to make it 9-0, but it was called out and upheld after a lengthy review.
Everyone on UH's side saw it go off a Missouri S &T player. During the review, Rosenthal joked with Nusterer he was gunning for that mark.
"I was going for it. When we started the challenge I went up to him and said, 'Hey, I'm coming for it, ' " Rosenthal said. "I said it when it was 8-0 going into the challenge and got the touch, but the call didn't go our way."
Rosenthal got that third ace during his second serving run that put UH ahead 20-8 before he served one off the top of the net.
The Miners hit a respectable.263 in the first set but still lost by double digits as Nusterer put away the final point to combine with fellow middle Voss for six kills in the opening set.
Hawaii went to its bench a set earlier than in Thursday night's sweep, with Keoni Thiim starting the second set outside and Oguzhan Oguz in at opposite hitter for Todd.
Missouri S &T stayed within range trailing 10-9 before UH rattled off seven of the next nine points.
Nusterer put UH ahead 17-11 with his first ace and Galloway notched his second ace to make it 21-13.
Thiim closed it out with his third kill in five attempts as eight Rainbow Warriors had at least one kill through the first two sets.
Todd, who had hit.387 or better in eight of his previous nine matches, had one kill and one error in the first set before sitting out the second.
He came back in to start the third and had four kills in the final set. UH hit.174 in the last set with six of its 11 hitting errors to end up at.394 for the match. Backup setter Kevin Kauling had 10 assists and an ace and one of 12 Hawaii service errors in the match.
"The third set got a little neurotic, but those are guys that don't play very much, so I'm OK with that, " Wade said.
Nate Meyer had a match-high 11 kills to lead the Miners (8-8 ).
Hawaii will open the month of March hosting Sacred Heart for two matches next Friday and Sunday.
