Hawaii men’s volleyball coach Charlie Wade sees it in the gym every day.
A season-high crowd of 8,930 at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center on Friday night witnessed first-hand what Wade has believed about his team since before the first serve of the season.
The third-ranked Rainbow Warriors are capable of making it all the way back to a fifth straight national final as evidenced by a 27-25, 25-7, 25-20 sweep of No. 5 Stanford.
Spyros Chakas hit a career-best .733 with 23 kills in 30 swings and Hawaii went the entire match with only three hitting errors in an impressive performance against a Cardinal team that hadn’t dropped an opening set all season.
Alaka’i Todd added nine kills and hit .600 for UH, which hit a season-best .594 and compiled a box score hard to believe possible against a team ranked in the Top 5 in the country.
“We believe we have a chance when we become the best version of ourselves that we could be the best team,” Wade said. “We’ve got a pretty good idea of what that looks like statistically and stylistically to be the best team because we’ve been it, or near it, for several years now.”
Freshman setter Tread Rosenthal had a match-high 33 assists and guided the Warriors offense to its best performance of the season.
It was his first taste of a packed Stan Sheriff Center home crowd, which he said before the season began was part of the reason he came to UH.
“It was super cool. At the start you just kind of look up and take it all in, and then you get down to business,” Rosenthal said. “I was gesturing to the crowd a lot and just fed off of their energy and we played as well as we can.”
All three of Hawaii’s starting pin hitters hit .400 or better, but nobody had it going quite like Chakas, who finished one kill shy of his career high despite the match going only three sets.
Chakas put down 21 kills in 26 swings before he was blocked for his first error to pull Stanford within 19-17 in the third set.
Rosenthal went right back to him for a kill on his next set and Todd followed with a kill to put UH ahead 21-17.
UH ended the match when Chaz Galloway hammered an overpass onto the floor for his fifth kill to end it.
“I don’t think I will ever go somewhere else in the world where there will be such a crowd and such an energy,” Chakas said. “For me, I’m just realizing that every game I play here is essentially my last game in the Stan Sheriff arena. Every game goes by and it’s my last year and I’m just trying to enjoy it as much as I can.”
Rosenthal had two of Hawaii’s five aces. The only two hitting errors by a UH starter came on both of Stanford’s blocks.
“I’m critical of Tread a lot in terms of what he’s doing, but at the end, you lead the nation in hitting percentage, so we have to keep perspective,” Wade said. “We made three hitting errors and I could put all of them on him tonight … but he’s learning and he’s listening, and if that’s the only hitting errors you make all night you can’t be too critical.”
Todd and Chakas carried the load offensively in the first set, combining for 11 kills on 19 swings with no errors.
The set was tied 15 times, with the last coming at 25-25 as Kevin Lamp held off UH’s second match point with one of his four kills.
His ensuing serve went into the bottom of the net for UH’s third match point and a bad set led to Chakas’ sixth kill, which elicited a loud roar from a crowd wearing mostly white as part of UH’s white-out theme.
Hawaii took out any possible drama in the second set, scoring 14 of the first 17 points.
Chakas served three consecutive points, which included his 99th career ace, tying Naveh Milo for 10th on the UH career list.
Todd served six consecutive points after a Stanford service error to put UH ahead 14-3, and Hawaii closed the set on a 7-0 run, with Rosenthal serving the final six points.
Guilherme Voss ended the Rainbow Warriors’ most dominant set of the season with his third kill to help UH hit .706 in the set with 13 kills in 17 swings.
“I think this just solidifies the work that we put in every day in the gym,” Chakas said. “On the court we show up every day, put in the work we need, and we put in the extra work to get better.”
Alex Rottman had a team-high 10 kills for Stanford, which has lost three in a row after starting the year 7-0. All-America outside hitter Will Rottman missed his fourth consecutive match.
UH will have a week off before hosting Missouri S&T for matches Feb. 22-23.
NO. 3 HAWAII DEF.
NO. 5 STANFORD 27-25, 25-7, 25-20
CARDINAL (7-3)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Rottman 310 4 26 .231 6 0 10.0
Wagner 3 8 5 19 .158 1 0 11.0
Lamp 2 5 6 16 -.062 3 0 5.0
Gates 3 4 0 7 .571 0 0 4.0
Hill 3 2 2 8 .000 1 1 2.5
Snoey 2 1 2 5 -.200 3 0 1.0
DuRoss 3 1 0 1 1.000 0 0 2.0
Chang 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Turner 3 0 0 0 .000 3 0 0.0
Lietzke 3 0 0 0 .000 2 1 2.5
Brouillette 3 0 0 0 .000 1 0 0.0
MATCH 3 31 19 82 .146 20 2 38.0
RAINBOW WARRIORS (10-1)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Chakas 323 1 30 .733 3 1 24.5
Todd 3 9 0 15 .600 2 2 11.0
Galloway 3 5 1 10 .400 4 2 8.0
Voss 3 4 0 7 .571 1 3 5.5
Rosenthal 3 2 0 3 .667 2 2 5.0
Nusterer 3 1 0 3 .333 1 3 2.5
Choy 3 0 0 0 .000 7 0 0.0
Taylor 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Kauling 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Thiim 3 0 1 1-1.000 3 0 0.0
MATCH 3 44 3 69 .594 23 13 56.5
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 — Stanford 5 (Wagner 3,
DuRoss, Lietzke). Hawaii 5 (Rosenthal 2,
Chakas, Todd, Galloway). Service errors
— Stanford 9 (Rottman 2, Lamp 2, DuRoss
2, Wagner, Hill, Brouillette). Hawaii 13
(Voss 3, Chakas 2, Todd 2, Galloway 2,
Rosenthal 2, Nusterer, Thiim). Assists —
Stanford 28 (Lietzke 25, Turner 2, Rottman). Hawaii 38 (Rosenthal 33, Galloway
2, Choy 2, Voss). Block solos — Stanford
1 (Lietzke). Hawaii 1 (Galloway). Ball handling errors — Stanford none. Hawaii
none. Reception errors — Stanford 5
(Rottman 3, Lamp 2). Hawaii 5 (Choy 4,
Chakas). T—1:45. A—9,226. Officials—
Wayne Lee, Dickson Chun, Mark Nakashima, Kevin Chun.
