After taking care of business in all but one match to start the season, the Hawaii men’s volleyball team is ready for a real dose of the stiff competition that lies ahead.
The Rainbow Warriors closed out a two-match sweep of Tusculum University with Keoni Thiim posting a match-high 14 kills, four blocks and two aces in a 25-15, 25-11, 25-7 win on Sunday in front of a SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 3,357.
Middle Kurt Nusterer set a career high with six aces and served 17 straight points in the third set during a 18-0 run for Hawaii (8-1), which will have only two days off before welcoming No. 4 Stanford (7-1) to the arena for two matches beginning Wednesday.
Hawaii, which entered the week ranked No. 3 in the AVCA/NVA National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Poll, has the other three teams ranked in the top four on the schedule beginning with the Cardinal, who lost their first match of the season Saturday against Cal State Northridge.
All six teams in the Big West are ranked entering today. Hawaii’s final 13 matches of the season are against teams currently in the top 20.
“We’re pretty locked in already,” Thiim said. “We just had a talk after the game that it was fun, it was a great game to get our boys in, let everyone prove what they have, but we’re going to get our main guys back in there and our job is to challenge them in practice the next couple of days and get them warmed up for the (Stanford) game.”
Hawaii enjoyed its sixth sweep of the season and closed it out in impressive fashion turning a 3-2 deficit into a 20-3 advantage.
A Thiim kill tied the match at 3-3 and changed the rotation, allowing Nusterer to go back and begin an incredible run of serves that included all six of his aces.
The arena seemed to get a decibel or two louder as each serve continued to end in a UH point.
“It’s really surreal. Just grateful to have that opportunity to have that feeling that is like no other,” Nusterer said. “It’s a really important feeling to become comfortable with. We’re going to be playing at Long Beach State in a couple of months and there will be people screaming at me for the wrong reasons.”
Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said he joked out loud he should sub out Nusterer after the first five points. Instead, he let him stay in and play back row when the run ended.
“You serve that many balls inbounds, you pretty much get to play any spot on the court,” Wade said. “Our middles probably receive more serves and hit more high balls and do stuff than pretty much anywhere else. It’s not a big stretch to leave him out there and receive serve at that moment. You have that kind of turn, you’ve got to get some kind of reward for it.”
Graduate transfer Kevin Kauling played the final two sets at setter and ended with a match-high 21 assists and three blocks for UH (8-1).
Opposite Alaka’i Todd had eight kills in 13 swings and Guilherme Voss finished with four kills and three blocks in two sets to pass Sivan Leoni for eighth on the UH career blocks list with 361.
“Even in that last set when we have certainly far from our starting lineup, sided out at 100 percent and had 13 kills,” Wade said. “It’s nice to see that we can go down the bench and still play productive and efficient.”
Hawaii made one change to its starting lineup from Friday’s win, inserting Nusterer into the lineup at middle blocker for Alex Parks.
With Syros Chakas and Chaz Galloway again not playing, Todd once again handled the bulk of the offense in the first set with five kills in seven swings.
Freshman Louis Sakanoko had three aces and Todd had two as Hawaii hit .500 and held the Pioneers to five kills to take the opening set with relative ease.
Setter Tread Rosenthal had seven assists, four digs and a block before giving way Kauling at the start of the second set.
Tusculum got its first kill from someone other than Deklan Wingo when Colby Landry, who already had two aces, hammered a kill off of Sakanoko’s chest to make it 10-7 in the second set.
Redshirt freshman Kai Taylor forced a Tusculum timeout at 18-9 after entering the match and recording his first ace in two years as a Rainbow Warrior.
Taylor, who was mobbed by his teammates as he walked off the court for the timeout, served two more points that both came on UH blocks.
Thiim put UH ahead 2-0 in the match with his second ace.
NO. 4 HAWAII DEF. TUSCULUM 25-15, 25-11, 25-7
PIONEERS (1-8)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
West 3 0 0 0 .000 3 0 0.0
Landry 3 1 1 9 .000 3 0 3.0
Wingo 3 10 3 22 .318 0 1 11.5
Moore 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Bramhall 3 0 1 3 -.333 1 1 0.5
Blake 3 0 0 0 .000 2 0 0.0
de la Cruz 3 0 3 8 -.375 0 0 0.0
N.Svendsen 2 1 2 3 -.333 0 0 1.0
Makovec 2 0 2 3 -.667 0 0 0.0
Nye 2 0 1 1 -1.000 0 0 0.0
Della Nina 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Da Silva 1 1 0 1 1.000 0 0 1.0
Hale 1 0 0 1 .000 0 0 0.0
Dubinsky 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
O’Neal 1 0 1 2 -.500 0 0 0.0
A.Svendsen 1 0 1 1 -1.000 0 0 0.0
Match 3 13 15 54 -.037 9 2 17.0
RAINBOW WARRIORS (8-1)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Choy 3 0 0 0 .000 1 0 0.0
Nusterer 3 1 0 2 .500 2 2 8.0
Thiim 3 14 1 18 .722 3 4 18.0
Sakanoko 3 6 2 9 .444 3 1 10.5
Todd 2 8 2 13 .462 4 0 10.0
Kauling 2 1 0 1 1.000 2 3 2.5
Voss 2 4 1 6 .500 0 3 6.5
Taylor 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 1.0
Ottmar 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Parks 1 0 0 0 .000 0 3 1.5
Oguz 1 1 1 2 .000 1 0 1.0
Rosenthal 1 0 0 0 .000 4 1 0.5
Match 3 35 7 51 .549 20 17 59.5
Key — s: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct: hitting percentage; d: digs; ba: block assists; pts: points (kills plus blocks plus aces).
Service aces — Tusculum 2 (Landry 2). Hawaii 16 (Nusterer 6, Sakanoko 4, Thiim 2, Todd 2, Taylor, Voss). Service errors — Tusculum 9 (de la Cruz 3, Bramhall 2, Blake, Landry, Makovec, Wingo). Hawaii 10 (Sakanoko 4, Todd 2, Nusterer, Rosenthal, Taylor, Voss). Assists — Tusculum 13 (Blake 11, West). Hawaii 31 (Kauling 21, Rosenthal 7, Choy 2, Thiim). Block solos — Tusculum 1 (Wingo). Hawaii none. Ball handling errors — Tusculum none. Hawaii none. Reception errors — Tusculum 16 (Wingo 7, West 5, Landry 2, N. Svendsen, A. Svendsen). Hawaii 2 (Choy, Sakanoko).
T—1:33. A—3,357. Officials—Mark Nakashima, Dickson Chun, Ryan Sakagawa, Kevin Chun.
