HONOLULU — Long Beach State was looking forward to this.
With emotion plain on the faces of Beach players, No. 4 LBSU operated at a high level and served up a measure of payback to two-time defending national men’s volleyball champion Hawaii with a stunning sweep of the top-ranked Rainbow Warriors, 25-20, 29-27, 25-22, in front of 6,709 at the Stan Sheriff Center on Friday.
UH swept its rival in the 2022 Big West tournament championship match, then the NCAA national title game.
The Beach, even with last year’s AVCA National Player of the Year Alex Nikolov nowhere on the Manoa Lower Campus premises, had all the answers this time against essentially the same Hawaii team.
“We beat them six straight sets in two championship matches. I think that wears with you maybe the rest of your life,” UH coach Charlie Wade said. “Certainly coming into tonight — they had that circled on their calendar for quite some time.”
UH (17-2, 0-1) appeared rattled in its Big West opener while LBSU (12-2, 3-0) announced itself as a conference contender once again after beginning league play a week earlier.
LBSU’s .484 hitting was a high for a UH opponent this season, while UH had a season low in team blocks, 3.5. The Beach sided out at a 77.5% clip.
Long Beach looked at some long faces across the net.
“We gotta find our consistency and stay there and keep our heads cool and keep playing,” said hitter Chaz Galloway.
Sotiris Siapanis attained the most kills he’s had in a LBSU uniform, 19, on 32 swings with just two errors to hit .531. Spencer Olivier added 13 kills and one error on 24 swings (.500).
Beach coach Alan Knipe credited his son, setter Aidan, for spreading a balanced attack around.
“I was probably equally impressed (with our) grit of digging balls in transition, multiple rallies back and forth and finding ways to win a lot of those,” Knipe said. “I thought we blocked really well; I thought we served really well.”
Opposite Dimitrios Mouchlias and Galloway delivered double-digit kills, 15 and 10, on better than .300 hitting, and middle Guilherme Voss was 7-for-7 as UH hit .303 overall. But UH’s other primary pin threat, Spyros Chakas, struggled mightily with eight errors to his seven kills to hit in the negative. At one point, he kicked away a ball in frustration after an LBSU point.
Wade said his team hadn’t practiced as a full unit all week as multiple players missed time with injuries and illnesses, though he added that he didn’t want to use it as an excuse.
“Hats off to Long Beach. Offensively they were really good, and we weren’t,” Wade said. “Certainly it was a pretty good effort, but if you play against a really good team like that you gotta be a little crisper.”
UH gamely tried to ride its crowd’s energy back into each set.
Right away, LBSU served notice that it was here to play with a .500 first set with just one error.
UH hit .516 in the second set, and it still wasn’t good enough; the Beach turned back four UH set points while the crowd did the Viking clap and finished the frame hitting .568.
LBSU successfully challenged a point that would’ve given UH the set at 26-24; Olivier was determined to have put a ball down out of bounds, but after it touched a UH player. That knotted it at 25 instead.
Galloway gave UH two more set points with kills. Siapanis knotted it at 27 with a kill. Chakas hit wide to give LBSU set point and Shane Holdaway served up a heater for his second ace of the season, and first since the season opener.
“It’s a critical point in the match,” Knipe said. “Super proud of the guys for not getting rattled with (UH) serving for the sets…”
LBSU took UH’s best punch in the third and jumped out 15-9, then held on when UH rallied within two late, with Olivier putting down the match-winner at the left pin.
UH had just gotten over a home loss to No. 3 Penn State by turning around to defeat No. 2 UCLA last week. It will have the opportunity to do the same to LBSU as the teams rematch at 7 p.m. Saturday.
“Probably starting off a little bit better, a little quicker,” Galloway said of what UH needed to do better. “We were a little slow starting off, and they had energy. So coming ready to play and not being so shocked when they’re swinging punches, because it’s going to be a fight all night.”
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.