There would be no lasting impression of Tusculum, a Division II independent, in its first meeting with the Hawaii men’s volleyball team.

No. 3 UH, playing its first home match in three weeks, pounded the Pioneers, 25-11, 25-16, 25-17, in front of 3,719 (5,417 tickets issued) at the Stan Sheriff Center on Friday night.

Coming off the team’s three-match sweep of its Indiana road trip, Alaka‘i Todd maintained his recent hot streak with 13 kills on 17 error-free swings (.765), and freshman Louis Sakanoko supplied nine kills on 15 swings to carry the offensive load with starters Spyros Chakas and Chaz Galloway given the night off.

Fireballer Keoni Thiim served up a career-best seven of his team’s 10 aces.

Alex Parks, a 6-foot-7 redshirt freshman and Maryknoll School graduate, made his UH debut and had two kills and an ace.

Lewis transfer Kevin Kauling was brought in for setting duties in relief of freshman Tread Rosenthal and had seven assists and a team-high five digs. UH hit a season-best .586 for the match.

"Good to get a number of guys in," coach Charlie Wade told Spectrum Sports' Scott Robbs. "Really appreciative of the crowd coming out here tonight. It's been a couple of weeks since we played in front of them. I know the guys were fired up to get back out here. We're still a work in progress, still trying to integrate guys in to see what we're going to have available down the stretch. But pretty efficient from the start and nice to get another win."

UH improved to 7-1 overall while Tusculum, a Tennessee school in just its fifth year of volleyball competition, dropped to 1-7. The ‘Bows sided out at 100% in Set 1 and did not commit an attack error in Set 2.

The teams will rematch at 5 p.m. Sunday.

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.