Men’s Volleyball Falls In Battle of Top Two Teams - University of Hawai'i at Manoa Athletics (2024)

LONG BEACH, Calif. – The top-ranked University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team saw its nation's-best 16-match win come to an end by No. 2 Long Beach State Friday in the first of two Big West matches at the Walter Pyramid. Set scores were 25-22, 25-20, 30-28.

Playing their first match without All-American Spyros Chakas, the Rainbow Warriors (17-2, 0-1 BWC) also saw their 15-match road win streak come to an end but not before putting up a fight, including a marathon deuce third set.

UH was led by opposite Alaka'i Todd's 10 kills while Thiim, who started for Chakas, added nine kills and eight digs. Guilherme Voss added eight kills while Chaz Galloway and Kurt Nusterer each tallied three blocks.

The Beach (17-1, 3-0) extended their home win streak to 21 and series win streak in Long Beach to 10. The nation's leader in blocking finished with 10.5 team blocks led by Simon Torwie's six. Skyler Varga had a match-high 12 kills and Sotiris Siapanis added 10 kills, two aces, seven digs, and three blocks.

Hawai'i, the nation's leader in hitting percentage and aces, were held to .236 clip and a season-low one ace.

In Set 1, four early errors by Hawai'i gave the Beach the early advantage at 8-5. The Warriors rallied and momentarily took the lead before the Beach jumped ahead 17-15 after a kill by Lazar Bouchkov. UH see-sawed back into the lead but a 3-0 run put the Beach put them ahead 20-18. The teams traded side-outs until the Beach scored the final two points including a net violation by Galloway on set point.

UH jumped ahead early in Set 2 with an 9-3 lead after a 6-0 run off the serving of Thiim. The Beach pulled within one after two blocks on Todd then tied it at 18. Moments later, the Beach won two challenges during a 4-0 run to jump ahead 22-19 and later won another challenge to get to set point. LBSU finished the set with five blocks and three aces for a 2-0 lead in the match.

The Warriors would not go down easily using a 5-1 run to take a 17-16 lead. The teams traded leads until the Beach scored three straight for a 23-22 lead. UH erased one match point and had three serves for the set but the Beach fended off each one. Thiim was blocked giving Long Beach State their second match point but UH answered with a kill by Voss. A Siapanis kill put the Beach on top 29-28 and Voss' attack error ended the match.

The teams play again on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. PT (4:00 p.m. HT).

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