The seats were filled, the crowd was loud, and the stage was set for a volleyball rivalry renewed between Hawaii and Long Beach State.
The unanimous No. 1 team in the country withstood a mid-match comeback from the fourth-ranked Rainbow Warriors and prevailed down the stretch, closing the fourth set on a 7-1 run to pull out a 25-21, 25-18, 18-25, 25-21 victory on Friday night.
A sold-out SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 9,932 saw Hawaii (22-4, 5-2) charge back, avoiding a sweep by hitting .375 with 17 kills in the third set.
UH led 20-18 in the fourth and looked on the verge of forcing a fifth set before the Beach (24-1, 6-1) put the match to bed quickly, taking advantage of a shaky UH offense that struggled to execute in the key moments at the end.
“We missed a couple (serves) late … and the one that hurt us in the end was they have got some really volatile servers, guys that can score, and we give up a couple-point run off the lolli-flip serve,” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said. “We’ve got to be better in that moment.”
Long Beach State freshman setter Moni Nikolov, who leads the nation in aces, was held without one for the first time in his collegiate career. The Beach finished with six aces and 18 service errors, while Hawaii had three aces and 17 service errors. Twelve of those errors came in the first two sets, when UH never held a lead.
“We were significantly below our team serving percentage and they were above by a lot all night,” Wade said. “We’re going to have to serve at least as good as our season averages to compete against the top teams. We can’t be worse than we have been all year.”
Finn Kearney, starting at opposite hitter in place of an injured Kristian Titriyski, had a career-high 17 kills to lead UH, which also got 12 kills from Adrien Roure and 11 from Louis Sakanoko.
Daniil Hershtynovich had 17 kills and Alex Kinder added 15 to lead the Beach, who took a one-game lead in the Big West standings over Hawaii.
The two teams will play again tonight — senior night for five UH players. After allowing the Beach to hit .490 through two dominant sets, UH made a change at the middle blocker position and showed renewed life, setting the stage for another high-level environment tonight.
“I think our big thing right now is getting back to the way we have played all year,” Hawaii sophomore setter Tread Rosenthal said. “Just keeping our serves in and aggressive. We know we can beat them and we know how we need to play to beat them and right now we’re not doing that.”
Nikolov had 38 assists, seven digs, five blocks and three kills for the Beach, while Rosenthal finished with a match-high 40 assists, 13 digs and four kills in a matchup of two of the best setters in the country.
Hawaii never led until the third set, when Ofeck Hazan entered the match at middle blocker.
He had three kills in four swings in the third set and improved Hawaii’s block touches. UH had 3.5 blocks over the final two sets after getting two in the first two.
“I thought that we were rushing in transition quite a bit from the end of the third set to the fourth set,” Long Beach State coach Alan Knipe said. “The serving subs that came in did great for us. I thought we did a really good job managing our serves. We served tough and we didn’t miss a lot.”
Hawaii led 20-17 in the third set when the Beach was credited with a point after a long rally that was challenged by Hawaii for four touches. The challenge was upheld, but the Beach came back with a challenge of their own for a net violation.
After a long delay, the point stood with Hawaii and UH avoided the sweep on a back-row kill by Roure.
Hawaii ended the match hitting .294 as a team. Kearney hit .237 and Sakanoko hit .240, while Roure finished at .375 with only three errors.
Kearney started a match for just the second time this season and first at home.
“That was awesome. Felt like it was out of a dream. I’ve never heard the place that loud,” Kearney said. “I’d say just less errors late in sets, it’s pretty simple. We missed some serves and made some attacking errors and let the little things slip away from us there (in the fourth set).”
Tonight’s 7 p.m. match is also sold out, marking the first time UH volleyball will play in front of back-to-back home sellouts in the regular season since 1996.
