Hawaii vs Texas Recap

Recap | Statistic

This overall was one of the best matches in Rainbow Wahine history. Defeating a #1 team is something that does not happen that often since we do not get to play a team like that in the conference. The team defeated Texas 3-1 (25-19, 19-25, 27-25, 25-16) in a match that went on for a little over two hours.

With a lot of unknowns coming into the match with who will start and what will happen, they were answered. Head coach Dave Shoji started sophomore Tai Manu-Olevau on the outside along with freshman Nikki Taylor on the opposite. The announcers say that Taylor was put in because of her big block which came out a success. The freshman started off her career with 10 kills while hitting .500 clip to go along with six block assists. Manu-Olevau hit .240 with eight kills and eight digs. This experiment by Shoji was a good decision by him and I believe he has gotten more respect for it.

Some new career highs tonight were 11 kills by Adolpho, Manu-Olevau's eight digs, one dig for Mendoza, and Taylor's 10 kills, hitting .500, four digs, six blocks. Also congratulations to Emily Hartong for getting her 1000th kill of her career.

VIDEO: Match Point Against #1 Texas (Video from Big West Conference)

Zarkovic is MPSF Player of the Week

MPSF Player of the Week

Recap | MPSF Release

Freshman outside hitter Sinisa "Siki" Zarkovic is giving the MPSF Player of the Week award after the series sweep against then #2 Pepperdine. He is the only player for the University of Hawaii to receive this award since the 2011 season. 

Thoughts: 

Zarkovic was a great get for head coach Charlie Wade. I think if Zarkovic can lead this team to big wins in the future, then it will save Charlie Wade from losing his job. Zarkovic has one of the best energy on the team, a great server, and probably the smartest attacker of all the players on the team. Commentators keep mentioning that he has played probably the most international games compared to other players in the MPSF and if that is true then it makes sense why his volleyball IQ is so high.

Hawaii still Unranked

AVCA Poll (1-28) 

The Warriors continued to stay unranked in the AVCA Coaches Poll but is receiving 34 points which is the most out of the teams receiving votes. The opponent they recently played Pepperdine, dropped from #2 to #4. People have mentioned that coaches most likely did not stay up late enough to see that Hawaii swept the Waves which means they already submitted their poll. This would have effected this weeks ranking explaining why Hawaii was not ranked even though they proved to deserve it.

MPSF Statistics

Player Statistics

Service Aces: #7) Brook Sedore [15 aces, 0.41 aps]

Digs: #9) Matthe Cheape [70 digs, 1.94 dps]

Team Statistics

Hitting Percentage: #11) Hawaii [.225] 

Opponent Hitting Percentage: #12) Hawaii [.294]

Assists: #9) Hawaii [11.11 aps]

Kills: #11) Hawaii [11..68 kps]

Blocks: #10) Hawaii [2.01 bps]

Aces: #5) Hawaii [1.34 aps]

Hawaii vs. Pepperdine Rewind

Warriors Sweep the Series

Recap | Box Score | VIDEO

The Hawaii Warrior volleyball team completed the upset and series against the #2 Pepperdine Waves this weekend. Sunday night was the quickest match so far this season when they swept the Waves (25-21, 25-22, 25-16) giving Hawaii its second conference win so far making them (3-6, 2-4). 

The Warriors were led by Brook Sedore (Grand Prarie, Alberta) and Sinisa "Siki" Zarkovic (Belgrade, Serbia) who each had 15 kills a piece. JP Marks (Schwerin, Germany) led the team in digs with eight. Davis Holt (Honolulu, HI/Maryknoll HS) had the most block for the Warriors with five and Johann Timmer (Auckland, NZ) and Joby Ramos (Honolulu, HI/UOP) both had two aces.

Tonight Hawaii's offense improved with smart hitting and coming up with big digs. I think Zarkovic had a lot of nice role shots to give the team points and Mark was just digging up incredible hits. 

Hawaii will return to the Stan Sheriff Center on February 1st against #4 Stanford at 7 PM HST.

Wahine and Warrior News [1-26]

Wahine and Warrior News

Wahine:

Dave Shoji holds the 2012 Big West Volleyball Trophy

The Wahine received their 2012 Big West Trophy yesterday (Photo from Hawaii Athletics Facebook). 

Other recent news is that Stephanie Hagins (Elverta, CA/Washington State) has left the University of Hawaii. There are rumours that she is the one who asked for a release and she is headed to Idaho. There has not been a confirmation about that.

A spring match has been scheduled with Texas Tech (14-18) at the Stan Sheriff Center on Friday, March 15th. The Wahine have nine players not playing sand volleyball so they will be training indoor only (Tuaniga, Uiato, Kawamura, Ponce, Hartong, Adolpho, Goodman, and Stauber).

 

Warriors:

Box Score - Recap - Video: Last five points - Video: Game Recap

The Warriors upset #2 Pepperdine (2-3) last night after coming back from being down 2-1. The score was 19-25, 25-18, 22-25, 25-21, 15-11. Hawaii was led by freshman outside hitter Sinisa "Siki" Zarkovic (Belgrade, Serbia) who had a career high 16 kills.

Hawaii has made changes to the lineup consistently through the season hoping to find one that fit just right. Last night seemed to look like the lineup was getting closer and closer to being their best. Head coach Charlie Wade moved JP Marks (Schwerin, Germany) from the opposite back to the left side where he had played the whole 2012 season. Taking Marks old spot was Brooke Sedore (Grand Prarie, Alberta) who got his first start of the season and played amazing. Sedore had a career high 17 kills while hitting .419 and also had a career high four aces. 

The middle was the position that changed throughout the match with Nick West (Orange, CA/UC Irvine) and Davis Holt (Honolulu, HI/Maryknoll HS) both getting the start. Holt played the best at middle when he got five blocks and six kills while hitting .429. West did not have a good night when he only had one kill and no blocks. Taylor Averill (San Jose, CA/UC Irvine) later came in for West picking up two blocks and five kills in six swings hitting .833 and one of his kills was the match winning kill. West came back in sparingly to be a bigger block when setter Joby Ramos (Honolulu, HI/UOP) was in the front row making Averill stay on the right side to set.

In order for the Warriors to keep Pepperdine from winning on Sunday (7:00 PM PST/5:00 PM HST), they will have to cut down on service errors (21 service errors) and continue to serve tough (Eight aces).

 

Sand Volleyball

The practices have started their practices a few weeks ago and this team is full of transfers. Players on this team have transferred from University of Oregon, Florida State, Arizona State, Hawaii Pacific, and multiple community colleges. 10 of the 22 players are from the indoor team (Croson, Longo, Kastl, Manu-Olevau, Mendoza, Vorster, Spieler, Kam, Lelepali, and Long). Jane Croson (Lakewood, CA/Los Alamitos) is the only returnee that received All-American honors and went to Gulf Shores, Ala for the Pairs Championship.

Brittany Tiegs (Stuart, Fl/Florida State) transferred to the University of Hawaii from Florida State last semester. But Tiegs was not released from Florida State so she will have to red-shirt the 2013 season. Tiegs was an AVCA All-American and played on the Seminoles team that placed third overall last season.

*NOTE: Volleyshots has updated its blog