Brett Sheward spent the past two years focused on anchoring Hawaii’s defense.
On Thursday, the junior was given control of the offense and helped direct the top-ranked Rainbow Warriors to a four-set victory over Concordia University Irvine on Thursday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
With All-America setter Jakob Thelle sitting out the match to manage his workload, Sheward shifted over from libero and ran an attack that hit .402 and the Rainbow Warriors (10-0) held off the Golden Eagles 25-14, 22-25, 25-15, 25-23 before a crowd of 3,590.
In their first home match since Jan. 20, the Warriors saw their run of consecutive sets won snapped at 25 when Concordia (4-6) outdueled UH late in the second set to tie the match.
The Warriors restored order in the third set and held off a Golden Eagles rally in the fourth to extend their match win streak to 19 with their 23rd straight home win.
While UH coach Charlie Wade noted “a couple of loose plays” late in the second set when the Warriors dropped just their third set of the season, “we hit over .400 with our libero setting tonight against a team that plays good defense,” he said. “Hard to be too critical of what we’re doing out there.”
Sheward earned a spot on the Big West’s all-freshman team as a setter in 2020 before Thelle took over for UH’s national title runs in 2021 and ’22. Sheward emerged as a mainstay at libero last season and into this season, and eased back into setting during UH’s three-match North Carolina road trip in late January when Thelle stayed back to rest a sore knee.
While Wade said Thelle was available on Thursday, Sheward was given the starting assignment, with junior ‘Eleu Choy wearing the green jersey as the starting libero.
“It’s a different feel for sure being in the Stan again. It gets the emotions going a little more,” Sheward said of his first home start as a setter since UH’s series against BYU in March 2020 before the pandemic shut down the season.
Sheward distributed a career-high 55 assists and UH opposite Dimitrios Mouchlias put away a season-high 20 kills in 36 attacks. Outside hitter Spyros Chakas hammered his 16th kill on match point.
Sheward got the middles involved at a higher rate in the final two sets, Cole Hogland tied his career high with 10 kills and two aces and Guilherme Voss finished with eight kills in 10 attempts and was in on six of UH’s nine blocks.
“Cole and G did a great job of being available and being loud and talking to me, and our passing was really solid in sets three and four,” Sheward said.”
Choy had five digs and handled 16 serve receptions without an error.
“It really is what brought Brett back into the mix at the setting position, because he’s played at a really high level in our practice gym for quite a while,” Wade said of Choy.
“He’s got such incredible feet, he makes some of the really hard serves look easy and it’s impressive.”
After the match, Wade was coy on Thelle’s status for tonight’s rematch with the Golden Eagles.
“Guess you gotta show up and find out,” he said.
UH dominated the first set of Thursday’s match, hitting .550 while converting on 13 of 14 sideout opportunities.
Concordia, which knocked off No. 12 Loyola Chicago earlier this season, battled back in the second set behind seven kills from opposite Uriel Batista, who finished the match with 15, and stunned the Warriors with a three-point run to end the set.
Hogland helped the Warriors reclaim control in the third set with three kills and a six-point service turn that included his second ace of the night.
“The thought process was I’m just going to smash these balls if I get a good toss,” Hogland said. “Some of them were pretty bad tosses, so I just put them in. But the (overall) thought process was keep being on the line because that’s whats going to keep us in front.”
The Warriors never trailed in the fourth set, though Concordia fought off two match points in a 5-1 run to close to 24-23. But Chakas hammered a kill out of the back row to end any thoughts of a fifth set.
