Tribune-Herald
Tribune-Herald
When the University of Hawaii men’s volleyball team is clicking, it’s proving to be pretty powerful.
The Rainbows picked up another win against a highly ranked team Friday night in Honolulu, and — naturally — it took them five sets to do it.
Freshman Sinisa Zarkovic smacked a career-high 19 kills and hit .441 as UH downed No. 2 Pepperdine 19-25, 25-18, 22-25, 25-21, 15-11 in Honolulu.
There were no shortage of stars for UH (2-6, 1-4 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation), which snapped a 12-game conference losing streak by hitting a season-high .364 against a Waves squad that features one of the better blocks in the nation.
Sophomore Brook Sedore compiled a career-high 17 kills on .419 hitting and served four of the team’s eight aces. JP Marks posted 12 kills and a career-high 16 digs, while Davis Holt (.429) had six kills to go along with a team-high five blocks.
Hawaii played its fourth five-setter in as many home matches. Its previous win came against then-No. 5 UCLA on Jan. 12 in Honolulu.
Maurice Torres had a match-high 20 kills for the Waves (3-2, 3-2), who hit .278.
Fittingly, UH closed out the match on Zarkovic’s serve after a kill by middle blocker Taylor Averill tied the decisive set 11-11. The Waves hit long on back-to-back points, Zarkovic served up his second ace of the match and then Averill ended matters with a kill.
Sedore helped Hawaii survive the fourth set with two timely kills as well as a block and an ace.
The teams will match up again at 5 p.m. Sunday (OC16) in Honolulu.