Hawaii men’s volleyball back in the win column with sweep of UC Santa Barbara
Hawaii’s Dimitrios Mouchlias put down 10 kills with no errors to help the fourth-ranked Rainbow Warrior volleyball team earn a bounce-back sweep over No. 5 UC Santa Barbara tonight at SimpiFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
A crowd of 4,185 helped boost the Warriors late in the second and third sets and UH rebounded from two losses at Long Beach State last week with a 25-16, 25-23, 28-26 win over the Gauchos.
UH outside hitter Spyros Chakas led UH with 11 kills and Mouchlias hit .500 in the Warriors’ 11th straight win in the series with UCSB. Filip Humler added four kills in seven attempts off the bench for the Warriors (19-5, 4-3 Big West).
Punahou graduate Ryan Wilcox put down a match-high 15 kills, 10 coming in the third set, for UCSB (16-7, 5-3).
The Warriors and Gauchos meet again on Saturday in UH’s regular-season home finale. UH’s senior class of middle blockers Max Rosenfeld and Kyler Presho and defensive specialist Avery Enriques will be honored after the match.
UH tied the program’s rally-scoring record for aces in a season when Chakas went back-to-back from the service line to push the Warriors’ total to 174, matching the mark set in 2019. Guilherme Voss followed with a solo block to give UH a 16-8 lead and the Warriors pulled away to take the set.
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Jakob Thelle opened the second set with two more aces to break the record and Chaz Galloway added another in a 6-0 UH run that gave the Warriors a 13-7 lead.
UH led 20-15 when a run of shaky passing helped UCSB catch the Warriors at 23-23. UCSB posted two aces and three blocks in an 8-3 surge and Dayne Chalmers hammered two kills when UH passes floated over the net.
After a UH timeout, Humler got a kill off a touch and Cole Hogland’s solo block of Brandon Hicks gave the Warriors the set and a 2-0 lead in the match.
UH put away nine kills with no errors in its first 12 attacks of the third set and took a 15-10 lead. UCSB went on a 6-0 run and caught the Warriors at 19-19 on an ace from Haotian Xia. A lengthy rally ended with Wilcox scoring off the block to push UCSB ahead 21-20. Wilcox added two more kills and UCSB led 23-21.
After a UCSB service error, a miscue on a Gauchos set tied it again at 23-23. A block gave UH match point, but Wilcox forced deuce with his 15th kill. The Gauchos survived three more match points before a net violation on a set ended the match.
