The second-ranked Hawaii men’s volleyball team expected a different Loyola Chicago team to show up Friday night in the rematch of Thursday’s 94-minute sweep by UH.
They were certainly correct in that assessment.
Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said flatly the Ramblers were better after No. 7 Loyola Chicago handed Hawaii its first home loss in January in two years in a 25-23, 25-22, 24-26, 29-27 win before a season-high crowd of 5,811 at Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
Aleksandar Sosa put down a match-high 19 kills and setter Ryan McElligott set the tone with four of his five aces in the first set for Loyola Chicago (1-1), which out-served and out-blocked the Rainbow Warriors.
“I thought they touched a lot of balls on the block and those first two sets, the first set, we had three or four balls back on our side to score some points and we didn’t,” Wade said. “We kind of screwed it up. We weren’t quite as crisp and efficient and against a good team, we let them hang around and they come back and make some plays late.”
Hawaii looked done for the night trailing 20-13 when it mounted a furious comeback in the third set to avoid a sweep.
Loyola Chicago had five match points in the fourth set and finally put the contest away with a double block of Ofeck Hazan to complete the upset.
“I think they served way better and we really struggled passing their serve,” said Hazan, who started in place of Trevell Jordan in the middle. “They were more creative out of system. (Thursday) they just hit into our block and today they just found the touches or just played better.”
Louis Sakanoko led Hawaii with 18 kills and set a career high with 12 digs, and Kristian Titriyski added 16 kills before sitting out the fourth set. UH hit .254 for the match and had six aces to the Ramblers’ eight. Loyola Chicago hd 15.5 blocks to Hawaii’s 10.5.
“We weren’t clicking on all cylinders and I’m not trying to use this as an excuse, but (setter) Tread (Rosenthal) didn’t practice all week. He had a back that tightened up,” Wade said. “Trevell’s back tightened up and I thought Ofeck played pretty well and he gave us a nice spark, but you’re just a little off rhythm there. Kristian was kind of grabbing his back late and obviously we made the decision to go with Kainoa (Wade) to give us a spark and he gave us that.”
Kainoa Wade and Sakanoko each served three straight points for UH in the third set after it fell behind 20-13 and Finn Kearney came off the bench to serve the final two points that ended in blocks to get UH back in the game.
Hawaii hit just .171 in the fourth and made eight service errors. It had 20 serving errors for the match and served in at less than 80%.
“Obviously it’s a work in progress. We’re in game four of the year,” Kainoa Wade said. “We got a lot of work to do, but we’ve got to trust what we know. We’ve served a lot of balls in our lives, all of us, so we know we can go on runs and make plays.”
The Ramblers gave Hawaii a taste of its own medicine in the opening set with McElligott building a strong poker hand of aces during an 8-0 run during which Charlie Wade used both timeouts.
McElligott had three aces after Jake Read’s kill put him behind the service line, and despite two Hawaii timeouts and the media timeout, he poured it on until UH caught a break with a Loyola Chicago net violation on an overpass that almost certainly would have been a Ramblers point.
Sakanoko followed with back-to-back kills, including a deep tip into the far corner over a triple block that prompted Loyola Chicago to call timeout leading 17-14.
Hawaii extended the run to 5-0 after Titriyski put down a kill following a long rally to pull UH within a point.
The Rainbow Warriors got back to even at 22-all on Kainoa Wade’s ace as a serving sub. The set was tied once more until a Rosenthal service error and a McElligott ace for his fourth of the set handed UH its first set loss of the season.
Rosenthal wasn’t able to spin serve all night due to the back injury.
Neither team separated by more than a point in the second set until Justin Todd had two aces during a 4-0 UH run to put the ‘Bows ahead 13-10.
Hawaii led 21-19 when the Ramblers scored six of the next seven points to go up two sets to none.
UH’s only point during the final 6-1 run came on a Loyola Chicago service error. The Ramblers scored three of their points on errors by UH and another on their sixth ace of the match.
The Rainbow Warriors will have four days off before playing four matches in three days next week.
Hawaii has doubleheaders against Roberts Wesleyan and Rockhurst in reverse order on Wednesday and Friday.
