Outrigger Tournament -- 2nd Night
Woozie
Another great night of volleyball -- all six hours of it. In the first
match, UCLA was almost upset by Laval. UCLA rested Paul Nihipali and paid
dearly for it. The match was a 5 game marathon with scores: 15-6, 14-16,
15-7, 13-15, 15-10. UCLA altered its starting lineup by putting in Davis,
Taliaferro, Thatcher, Stillwell, Naeve and Moselle. Sorely missing in this
starting lineup were Nihipali and Robins. UCLA's lack of respect for Laval
was answered by some great play by Laval in games 2, 4 and 5. Laval
received raucous applause for their perserverence against a supposedly
superior UCLA team. UCLA was sloppy beyond belief with enough service
errors for two matches. Laval was led by Frederic Lavoie with 26 kills and
Maxime Larivee with 17 kills. The passing for Laval was better than UCLA's
and Laval's setter Francis Mori showed some great hustle and spirit.
UCLA's embarrassing win was led by Thatcher's 35 kills. UCLA did not
deserve to win tonight. They were big and slow.
In game 1, UCLA rushed off to a 7-3 lead before Laval closed in to 7-6.
After that, UCLA ran away to win 15-6. In game 2, Laval roared back and
jumped out to an impressive 10-2 before falling aparrt for a while. Laval
allowed UCLA to tie the score at 10, before scoring two unanswered points.
UCLA tied and passed Laval at 13-12. Laval tied, but let UCLA score
another point to lead 14-13. UCLA could not convert and Laval eventually
forced their way to a 16-14 win in game 2. UCLA put in Fred Robins in game
3. Laval managed to jump out to a 5-1lead before UCLA took over and ran to
10-5. Laval managed to score two more points before UCLA took Laval out at
15-7. Game 4 was UCLA's to lose and they did. After getting out to a 7-2
lead, UCLA started to sag and let Laval tie the score at 10 before pushing
ahead to 13-10. UCLA never got past 13 and Laval took game 4 15-13. And
then it was rally scoring. UCLA appeared to be smashing Laval at first
before Laval came back. Despite a valiant effort, Laval couldn't stop
UCLA's powerful players after four grueling games and lost 15-10.
Other comments about the two teams: UCLA -- Naeve's jump serve was
beautiful to behold (smooth and consistent), Taliaferro is a very
impressive setter (Bruins haven't lost much in terms of talent at this
position, but they have lost Metzger's leadership), defensive specialist
Trong Nguyen got a rare opportunity to play in the front row tonight and
managed to hit 5 kills and Thatcher looked good racking up his 35 kills,
but he's no Nihipali. In fact, none of the other Bruins even come close to
Nihipali. Naeve shows great promise, but could use more muscle. Serving
was mediocre except for Naeve and Nguyen.
Laval: good resolve, but too small and not consistent enough to take on
powerful teams like UCLA, Hawai`i and Penn State. Laval had many
opportunities to win tonight, but didn't convert. There were overpasses
that Laval should have put away. Laval had serving errors at crucial
moments. However, Laval deserves a great deal of credit for digging UCLA's
spikes. Thankfully, UCLA's serves aren't as brutal as Hawai`i's so Laval
did have more chances to pass the ball. It's too bad that Laval had lost
so many starters from last year. Otherwise, Laval could have beaten UCLA.
The main event -- Hawai`i vs. Penn State. Hawai`i wins in 4: 15-6, 15-12,
5-15, 15-10. Credit Contreras (32 kills) and Kepner (24 kills) for keeping
PSU in the match, but they were no match for the balanced offense of the
Bows. All 5 of the Rainbows' starting hitters came up with double-digit
kill figures: Jason Ring - 23, Tune - 19, Milo -17, Wilton -14 and Leoni
-12. PSU was great in games 3 and 4, but frustrated by the quicker and
more diverse offense of the Bows. The serving of the Bows was also a factor
in this match with 8 or 9 aces.
Game 1: the Bows rout the Nittany Lions 15-6. Zooming off to a 4-0 lead
and never looking back, the Bows made it look easy in game 1 (kill
percentage: UH .447, PSU .333; Bows - 5 aces). In game 2, it was much
closer with the biggest spread at 11-5 in favor of Hawai`i. PSU fought
back to 11-7 and eventually got as close as 13-12 before the Bows closed
out game 2 at 15-12. Game 3: all Penn State. The Bows were shockingly
flat in game 3 with Penn State blazing to a 11-1 lead. The Bows got as
close as 12-5 before Penn State took game 3. The late surge by the Bows in
game 3 was too little, too late. Game 44: Hawai`i took off to a 10-2 lead,
then stalled. Penn State closed to 11-9, but the Bows came back and held
Penn State to only 1 more point. By this time, all of Penn State's
starters were exhausted and suffering from sloppy play. Meanwhile, the
Bows had rested opposite Jason Ring and setter Curt Vaughan briefly during
game 3 so they could come back in game 4.
Bottom line: Penn State is impressive, but their offense wasn't varied
enough tonight. Pampena did not have a good night and the Nittany Lions
were forced to rely too heavily on Contreras and Kepner.
Attendance: 8,938 tickets issued and 8,040 through the turnstile. As a
final note, virtually all of those 8,040 fans were cheering for Laval in
the first match (except for relatives of UCLA's Fred Robins). This was
Laval's first visit to Hawai`i and hopefully it won't be their last.
--
\\/oozie
<<Go Bows!!>>
University of Hawai`i Special Events Arena
Stan Sheriff's Volleyball Field of Dreams
He Built it and They Came