GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Kristian Titriyski battled at the net against UC San Diego’s Anthony Cherfan and Nick Rigo on Friday.
1 /3 GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Kristian Titriyski battled at the net against UC San Diego’s Anthony Cherfan and Nick Rigo on Friday.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Kristian Titriyski took his swing against UC San Diego’s Josh Schellinger.
2 /3 GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Kristian Titriyski took his swing against UC San Diego’s Josh Schellinger.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Kristian Titriyski was on the hunt for a kill against UC San Diego’s Josh Schellinger and Peter Selcho.
3 /3 GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Kristian Titriyski was on the hunt for a kill against UC San Diego’s Josh Schellinger and Peter Selcho.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Kristian Titriyski battled at the net against UC San Diego’s Anthony Cherfan and Nick Rigo on Friday.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Kristian Titriyski took his swing against UC San Diego’s Josh Schellinger.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Kristian Titriyski was on the hunt for a kill against UC San Diego’s Josh Schellinger and Peter Selcho.
Three matches into the Big West Conference season and fourth-ranked Hawaii is already the lone remaining undefeated team.
It’s not a large sample size, but with only 10 conference games in a six-team league before the Big West tournament, every win matters, just ask No. 1 Long Beach State.
On a night the unanimous top team in the country was swept by UC Irvine at home, the Rainbow Warriors notched their 12th sweep of the season and third in the past four matches with a 25-21, 25-21, 25-18 victory over No. 11 UC San Diego in front of a SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 5, 712.
Kristian Titriyski put down a match-high 16 kills and Louis Sakanoko added 13 for Hawaii (20-2, 3-0 ), which secured a fourth straight 20-win season and seventh total under head coach Charlie Wade, who admitted his team was living dangerously early in the match with 13 errors committed.
“It’s that balance between being passionate and cerebral. Really being fully engaged, but at the same time, being aware of the situation, ” Wade said. “We’re just trying to win games to get to the end of the season. Every one of those is still up for grabs, obviously, with the seeding and the tournament, but there’s nothing more important than playing UC San Diego (tonight ).”
Sakanoko put down six of his 13 kills in the third set, including a back-to-the-net overhead kill shot that wasn’t planned but got the job done.
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“I called a ball inside and (setter Tread Rosenthal ) didn’t give me the ball inside, so I was like I needed to do something and it worked, so pretty cool, ” Sakanoko said.
Adrien Roure added seven kills and four blocks for Hawaii, which was coming off a 12-day layoff since losing to Southern California in the championship match of the Outrigger Invitational.
Despite giving the Tritons more than half of their points in the first set on errors, the Rainbow Warriors turned it up late to take the opening set by four points.
UH used a 7-3 run to close the set, with Roure serving an ace off the head of UCSD’s Leo Pravednikov out of a Tritons timeout to set up set point at 24-20.
“We score at such a high rate that we’re able to win the set, even if going ...
