GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Tread Rosenthal, left, and Ofeck Hazan went up for a block against Long Beach State’s Skyler Varga during a Big West men’s volleyball match on Friday at the SimpliFi Arena, Stan Sheriff Center.
1 /3 GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Tread Rosenthal, left, and Ofeck Hazan went up for a block against Long Beach State’s Skyler Varga during a Big West men’s volleyball match on Friday at the SimpliFi Arena, Stan Sheriff Center.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Ofeck Hazan, left, Justin Todd, Tread Rosenthal, Finn Kearney and Adrien Roure celebrated a point against Long Beach State during a Big West men’s volleyball match on Friday at the SimpliFi Arena, Stan Sheriff Center.
2 /3 GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Ofeck Hazan, left, Justin Todd, Tread Rosenthal, Finn Kearney and Adrien Roure celebrated a point against Long Beach State during a Big West men’s volleyball match on Friday at the SimpliFi Arena, Stan Sheriff Center.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Ofeck Hazan goes up for a kill against Long Beach’s Ben Braun during a Big West men’s volleyball match on Friday at the SimpliFi Arena, Stan Sheriff Center.
3 /3 GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Ofeck Hazan goes up for a kill against Long Beach’s Ben Braun during a Big West men’s volleyball match on Friday at the SimpliFi Arena, Stan Sheriff Center.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Tread Rosenthal, left, and Ofeck Hazan went up for a block against Long Beach State’s Skyler Varga during a Big West men’s volleyball match on Friday at the SimpliFi Arena, Stan Sheriff Center.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Ofeck Hazan, left, Justin Todd, Tread Rosenthal, Finn Kearney and Adrien Roure celebrated a point against Long Beach State during a Big West men’s volleyball match on Friday at the SimpliFi Arena, Stan Sheriff Center.
GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE @STARADVERTISER.COM Hawaii’s Ofeck Hazan goes up for a kill against Long Beach’s Ben Braun during a Big West men’s volleyball match on Friday at the SimpliFi Arena, Stan Sheriff Center.
The seats were filled, the crowd was loud, and the stage was set for a volleyball rivalry renewed between Hawaii and Long Beach State.
The unanimous No. 1 team in the country withstood a mid-match comeback from the fourth-ranked Rainbow Warriors and prevailed down the stretch, closing the fourth set on a 7-1 run to pull out a 25-21, 25-18, 18-25, 25-21 victory on Friday night.
A sold-out SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 9, 932 saw Hawaii (22-4, 5-2 ) charge back, avoiding a sweep by hitting.375 with 17 kills in the third set.
UH led 20-18 in the fourth and looked on the verge of forcing a fifth set before the Beach (24-1, 6-1 ) put the match to bed quickly, taking advantage of a shaky UH offense that struggled to execute in the key moments at the end.
“We missed a couple (serves ) late … and the one that hurt us in the end was they have got some really volatile servers, guys that can score, and we give up a couple-point run off the lolli-flip serve, ” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said. “We’ve got to be better in that moment.”
Long Beach State freshman setter Moni Nikolov, who leads the nation in aces, was held without one for the first time in his collegiate career. The Beach finished with six aces and 18 service errors, while Hawaii had three aces and 17 service errors. Twelve of those errors came in the first two sets, when UH never held a lead.
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