It was a big win for the Big West Conference and an even bigger win for No. 3 Hawaii on Friday night.
Conference commissioner Dennis Farrell celebrated his birthday with 2,627 new-found friends at the Stan Sheriff Center as the Rainbow Warriors won their inaugural Big West volleyball match, turning back No. 5 UC Irvine 25-17, 22-25, 25-22, 25-16 in 2 hours and 12 minutes.
Junior hitter Stijn van Tilburg and sophomore opposite Rado Parapunov each had 21 kills and junior setter Joe Worsley had a career-high four aces for Hawaii (9-1, 1-0), which won its 14th consecutive home conference match. Sophomore middle Patrick Gasman added 10 kills and senior libero Tui Tuileta had 14 of the team’s 37 digs.
“Hopefully this is the beginning of other conferences adding the sport,” Farrell said. “Grow the game.”
The match had a combined 38 ties through Set 3, only to have none in Set 4 with the Warriors rolling out to a 7-0 lead behind Worsley’s serving run. It ended with another Worsley serving run, this by younger brother Gage, who capped the night with an ace, Hawaii’s eighth.
“It was fun, it was really fun,” said Gage, a freshman who came in with the Warriors up 23-16. “I told my brother I was going to go for it, but he said, ‘No, it’s 23 and we need it in.’ At 24, as soon as I heard the clap (for aloha ball), oh, yeah, I was going for it.
“Irvine’s a scrappy team, a good team. It was two good teams going at it. When we were up 7-0, knew we had the momentum and we needed to keep it.
The teams meet again at 5 p.m. Sunday.
Senior hitter Aaron Koubi had 17 kills to lead the Anteaters (10-4, 0-1), who dropped their third straight this season and fifth in a row to the Warriors. Junior opposite Karl Apfelbach added 14 kills for UCI, plagued by 15 service errors.
“I thought we came out great after intermission,” van Tilburg said. “We didn’t want to open Set 4 the way we did Set 2.
”The first three sets started slow. The fourth we jumped on them right away.”
Hawaii had more aces (three) and blocks (three) than hitting errors (two) while running away in Set 1. Two of the Warriors’ stuffs came during Joe Worsley’s late 5-0 serving run that put UH up 23-15.
After six service errors in Set 1, the Anteaters cleaned it up with just one in Set 2. A service error and a hitting error by Hawaii allowed UCI to break a 13-13 tie — the eighth and last of the set — and the Anteaters led the rest of the way.
The Warriors held off two set points, pulling to 24-22, but Worsley hit wide on a service overpass to end the rally.
Hawaii won one of the oddest sets in memory, one that featured two media timeouts after UCI successfully won a challenge, in addition to the Anteaters being incorrectly called for a wrong server, which forced a replay. The Warriors appeared to have taken a 15-13 lead at the first media timeout, but Hawaii was called for a net violation before the UCI attack was ruled out to tie it at 14.
At 20-20 — the 16th tie — a kill by Parapunov and a block of Joel Schneidmiller by Worsley and Gasman gave Hawaii separation at 22-20. The Anteaters closed to within one twice, the last at 23-22, but the Warriors closed it out on kills by van Tilburg and Parapunov, both following great defensive plays.
