Louis Sakanoko made an even bigger point on match point Saturday night.
The fourth-ranked Hawaii men’s volleyball team is a true national championship contender.
Sakanoko put down the final two points on kills with the fifth set tied at 13 and the Rainbow Warriors outlasted No. 1 Long Beach State 21-25, 25-20, 18-25, 25-19, 15-13.
A SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 9,771 watched Hawaii (23-4, 6-2 Big West) pull out its biggest win of the season without freshman opposite hitter Kristian Titriyski, who missed his second consecutive match.
Freshman Finn Kearney, who played at both opposite and outside, had 17 kills for a second consecutive night and middle Kurt Nusterer, who only decided a week ago this would be his final regular-season home match, added a career-high 10 kills on 12 swings to hit a career-high .833.
“There was an opportunity to win our conference in the regular season and we had the No. 1 team in volleyball, and so it was high-level competition for sure,” Kearney said. “We faced a lot of adversity through the whole game. It took a lot and we showed a lot. I’m proud of the team.”
Hawaii improved to 4-0 in five-set matches.
“We were throwing the kitchen sink at them there for a while,” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said. “That’s the best team in the country in a really high-level match and a lot of guys got some really valuable time (on the floor). Proud of the guys for sticking together and grinding and coming out with a win.”
Alex Kandev had 16 kills and Skyler Varga added 13 kills and three aces for the Beach (24-2, 6-2).
Setter Moni Nikolov, who finished with a match-high 49 assists, six digs, six blocks and five kills, had six service errors without an ace. He didn’t have an ace in nine sets against UH after entering the week with at least one in every match he had played.
Long Beach State, which played a fifth set for only the second this season, took the first timeout trailing 6-3 after a double block by Justin Todd and Kearney.
The Beach crept back to tie the match at 7-all after a UH hitting error and net violation.
Hawaii retook a two-point lead at 10-8 on a Tread Rosenthal kill, and a monster solo block by Nusterer on Alex Kandev out of the back row prompted the Beach to use their second timeout down three points.
Long Beach State tied the match at 12-all on a Varga serve that forced an overpass, leading to an easy kill.
The teams tied one last time at 13-13 before Sakanoko put down a roll shot that fell just inside the back line.
His ninth kill on the next play ended it.
“I had no idea if it was in,” Sakanoko said of his penultimate kill. “I saw Moni shaking his head and I was like, ‘OK, it is in,’ but I didn’t know.”
Nusterer, who has a year of eligibility remaining, decided he would not return after receiving a job offer he couldn’t turn down last week.
After getting benched in Friday’s four-set loss, Nusterer added six of Hawaii’s 10.5 blocks and came up clutch in the middle on a night UH needed every point.
“He was huge. He has gone on and been more of an emotional leader as the season has gone on,” Wade said. “He came in and played great. He played big tonight.”
Nusterer and seniors ‘Eleu Choy, Kawai Hong, Zachary Thompson and Clay Wieter were honored after a match that took 3 hours, 20 minutes.
Hawaii got off to a much better start than in Friday’s four-set loss, when it never led until the third set.
The Beach took a timeout after giving up four straight points to open the match and UH stretched the lead to 6-1 on a solo Sakanoko block.
The momentum ended there with a service error by Adrien Roure and a hitting error down the line from Sakanoko that got the Beach going.
Despite serving out nine times, Long Beach State used an ace and three blocks and hit .500 to storm back and roll the Rainbow Warriors.
UH found an answer in the second set, bringing in Kainoa Wade at outside and moving Kearney over to opposite in place of Roure, who had four kills but three errors and two service errors in the first set.
Back-to-back solo blocks from Kearney and Rosenthal tied the set at 6-all and propelled Hawaii to a five-point set win to even the match.
UH had 4.5 blocks in the set, including a thunderous solo stuff from Nusterer out of an LBSU timeout to increase UH’s lead to 21-17.
Nusterer added a kill to cap a 5-0 run at 23-17 and Sakanoko put down the set-winner and instantly started jawing with the Beach as the two teams headed to their locker rooms.
The Beach took control of the third set with a 9-4 run after leading 14-13 to go up 2-1 in the match.
They hit .500 for the second time, while Hawaii had only nine kills with seven errors.
UH turned back to Roure on the outside in the fourth set and moved Kearney, who led UH with 12 kills and hit .333 through the first thee sets, to opposite.
Roure put down kills on his first two swings and Sakanoko detonated from behind the 3-meter line for a thunderous shot to put UH ahead 8-6.
Georgi Binev entered as a serving substitute and put down consecutive aces, with the second bouncing off the net and over to tie the set at 13-all.
UH answered as Binev served way out on his next attempt and Roure put down his fourth kill of the set to put Hawaii back up 15-13 at the media timeout.
A double block on Nikolov started a 4-0 run to put UH ahead 20-15 and Kearney sent the crowd into a frenzy with his 16th kill to force a fifth set.
Roure had five kills and one error in 11 swings after he returned to the match.
