Hawaii’s final match against an unranked opponent was noticeably tougher than some of its matches against ranked foes.
The Lindenwood Lions of the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association dropped to 4-11 this season, but did so giving the third-ranked Rainbow Warriors a real scare on Friday night,
Opposite Kristian Titriyski put down a match-high 19 kills and freshman Finn Kearney provided some balance to the offense in the final two sets. He finished with seven kills while hitting .500 in a 25-16, 23-25, 27-25, 25-23 win that lasted much longer than Wednesday’s sweep.
“There’s times when teams come in here and they are just playing with house money. Certainly they were fearless,” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said. “Frankly they just played harder than we did most of the match.”
A SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 4,606 watched the Lions win a set off of the Rainbow Warriors (17-1) for the first time in eight tries. Hawaii then had to come back from down 15-10 in the fourth set to avoid going to a fifth.
Kearney and Titriyski had four kills each in the fourth set and Adrien Roure, who finished with 11 kills and three block assists, had a block and a kill during a 5-0 run out of the media timeout in the fourth set. That got UH on track for its eighth win in 15 days, which included a four-match road trip to North Carolina.
“I think we have some fatigue in the legs and even mentally,” Roure said. “We played really good against UCI last week, got like three days off and come back to a new series. It’s always hard. I think they played really well. I’m glad we found the solution to win the game.”
Setter Tread Rosenthal, who put away his fifth kill on match point to end it, added 37 assists, six digs and three blocks.
Rosenthal put the finishing touches on the first set with a kill off a Clay Wieter assist from well off the court.
Titriyski, who had the dig to start the final point, had five kills in eight swings without an error to lead a Hawaii offense that hit .500.
Roure had three kills in four swings and UH had two blocks to help hold the Lions to a .148 hitting percentage.
The Lions held Hawaii to a .143 hitting percentage in the second set when Wieter, who spent the last three seasons at Lindenwood, served into the net coming out of a Lions timeout.
UH made six attacking errors and had six more errors from the service line in the second set after going with sophomores Louis Sakanoko at outside hitter and Alex Parks in the middle.
Parks was in on two of UH’s three blocks and put down a kill in his only attempt while Sakanoko struggled with three errors and no kills in six swings, forcing Wade to go back to Wieter at the end of the set.
“In that second set we let like three balls drop,” Wade said. “We played a ball that was out and I think twice we let a ball in. At the end, those three balls are a six-point swing and it ends up being deuce and now they think they’ve got a little momentum and they can play.”
The teams went to deuce in the third set with UH pulling it out on a service error followed by an attacking error by the Lions.
Titriyski and Roure continued to carry the load offensively for UH, combining for nine of Hawaii’s 14 kills in the set.
UH hit .435 in the fourth set but still needed a Rosenthal kill to avoid going to deuce again.
“They are a great team and went out there to ball and they had nothing to lose,” Kearney said. “It was a fight. It was a battle. It was fun. Games like that always just blocking and defense. That and keeping my serve in.”
UH had two aces to the Lions’ four and was outblocked 12 to 101⁄2.
The ‘Bows return to the floor for three matches in three days starting Thursday in the Outrigger Invitational.
