More than 10 hours after taking his first swing in a match on Wednesday, Justin Todd was ready to play even more.
Fortunately for the third-ranked Rainbow Warriors, no more volleyball was needed after Todd’s kill ended a long day with a 25-21, 25-19, 23-25, 25-13 victory over Rockhurst to complete a doubleheader at Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
A crowd of 3,721 came through the turnstile to see Hawaii improve to 5-1 after an earlier sweep of Roberts Wesleyan with six reserves playing in the starting lineup.
The second match took a bit longer after a combined 15 hitting and service errors briefly set the Rainbow Warriors back in the third set. It was the first set UH has dropped in a win this season.
“We got progressively worse until we got really good,” Hawaii coach Charlie Wade said. “I think everybody deserves a little frustration. Guys aren’t making errors on purpose, but we’ve got some work to do.”
Playing with the regular starters at opposite, outside, libero and setter, UH hit .382 for the match but committed 24 service errors.
Kristian Titriyski and Adrien Roure each had a match-high 15 kills and libero Quintin Greenidge had a match-high 10 digs.
Todd, who switched positions back to middle from the outside a week before the season began, remarkably looked like he barely broke a sweat after playing all seven sets.
UH had two healthy middle blockers listed on the official roster. Mitchell Croft, a 6-foot-9 sophomore outside and opposite, has practiced in the middle after playing there for the Australian senior national team over the summer.
“Mitch has been taking reps so we have another in there and Trevell (Jordan) is getting better. We will see about Friday. It’s still a question,” Wade said.
Todd finished with six kills, two aces and two blocks and wasn’t overly concerned about playing more.
“I’m always excited to play some more volleyball. I was happy to get the ending kill, but I wouldn’t have been upset if we were playing more. I need the reps,” Todd said. “I felt bad for AP because it would have been a great chance for him to get in the game and get him experience. Seeing him go down, I just felt bad for him.”
AP, in reference to Alex Parks, was injured in practice Tuesday and had his ankle wrapped as he sat on the UH bench. Jordan has missed the last three matches and freshman Roman Payne isn’t expected to debut anytime soon.
Roure’s one-on-none smash kill from the back row ended an opening set in which UH got off to a slow start.
Rockhurst led as late as 11-10 before UH cut down on its hitting errors and went to work. Hawaii put down its last six kills without an error and hit .450 despite the six service errors.
UH’s serving issues continued in the second set and Wade used a timeout with his team ahead 20-17 after the Rainbow Warriors gave up four consecutive points that included a service error, an ace and an out of rotation violation.
Hawaii scored five of the final seven points with Todd finishing it off with an ace.
Rockhurt beat Hawaii to the 15-point media timeout in the third set with a triple block of Titriyski putting the Hawks ahead 15-14.
The Hawks stole the set with their final four points coming on either hitting errors or service errors by the Rainbow Warriors, who upped their total to 20 serving errors in three sets.
“We’ve got to come out with some more fire from the beginning,” Todd said.
Hawaii responded with a commanding victory in the fourth set. UH had kills in nine of its first 11 attempts to lead 15-6 at the media timeout. Roure served three consecutive aces to give him five in the match.
Hawaii will play both teams again on Friday in reverse order with Rockhurst the opponent in the opening match at 11 a.m. UH is likely to roll with the same lineups in the morning and evening matches.
NO. 3 HAWAII DEF. ROCKHURST 25-21, 25-19, 23-25, 25-13
HAWKS (1-3)
NO. PLAYER SP K E TA H% K% A SA SE RE D BS BA TB BE BHE PTS
7 Spadaro 4 8 5 23 .130 .348 2 0 5 2 5 0 3 3 0 0 9.5
8 Sutphen 4 8 4 20 .200 .400 0 1 2 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 9.5
24 Tran 4 8 6 28 .071 .286 1 1 6 2 1 1 0 1 0 0 10.0
11 Deroy 4 5 0 7 .714 .714 0 0 0 1 2 1 2 3 1 0 7.0
10 Yusk 4 3 2 10 .100 .300 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 3 0 0 4.5
3 Jacques 4 1 0 1 1.00 1.0028 3 2 0 5 0 3 3 0 0 5.5
1 Massey 2 0 0 0 .000 .000 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
4 Soto 1 0 0 0 .000 .000 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
12 Mccue 2 0 0 0 .000 .000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
15 Huhman 1 0 1 1 -1.00 .000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
17 Collins 4 0 0 0 .000 .000 1 0 0 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Totals 4 33 18 90 .167 .367 32 5 20 10 19 2 12 7 1 0 46.0
RAINBOW WARRIORS (5-1)
NO. PLAYER SP K E TA H% K% A SA SE RE D BS BA TB BE BHE PTS
7 Roure 4 15 5 24 .417 .625 0 5 5 0 7 0 1 1 0 0 20.5
10 Titriyski 4 15 6 25 .360 .600 1 0 3 0 6 0 3 3 0 0 16.5
23 Sakanoko 4 9 3 19 .316 .474 1 0 1 3 1 1 2 3 0 0 11.0
9 Todd 4 6 2 13 .308 .462 0 2 4 0 2 0 2 2 0 0 9.0
16 Hazan 4 3 0 4 .750 .750 0 0 0 0 2 0 4 4 0 0 5.0
13 Rosenthal 4 2 0 4 .500 .50044 2 7 0 2 1 1 2 0 0 5.5
4 Wade 4 0 0 0 .000 .000 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.0
11 Kearney 3 0 0 0 .000 .000 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
22 Greenidge 4 0 0 0 .000 .000 3 0 0 1 10 0 0 0 0 0 0.0
Team 1
Totals 4 50 16 89 .382.562 49 10 24 5 30 2 13 8 0 0 68.5
T — 2:05. A — 3,721. Officials — Dickson Chun, Randy Rubonal, Kerwin Stenstrom,
Hunter Haliniak.
Key — SP: Sets played; K: kills; E: hitting errors; TA: Total attempts; H%: Hitting percentage; K%: Kill percentage; A: Assists; SA: Service ace; SE: Service error; RE: receiving error; D: Digs; BS: Block solos; BA: Block assist; TB: Total team blocks; BE: Block errors;
BHE: Ball-handling errors; PTS: Points (kills plus blocks plus aces).
