That’s two.
UH-Hilo’s volleyball team may need to be perfect on this perfectly manageable road trip, and the Vulcans are 40 percent of the way home.
UHH received its customary balance as well as an uptick in serving aces and blocks Sunday, powering past winless Academy of Art 25-12, 25-21, 20-25, 25-16 in San Francisco.
The Vuls (15-5, 11-3 PacWest) remained in fourth in the tight Pacific West Conference standings with their third win in a row, and for the second day in row they earned a season sweep against an anemic opponent. On Saturday, UHH swept Holy Names.
With five matches in seven days, the road does figure to get harder, but Fresno Pacific (5-18, 4-10) has lost seven of eight as they get set to host the Vuls in the teams’ first meeting of the season.
Against Academy-Art (0-16, 0-24), Bria Beale posted her seventh double-double with 12 kills and 13 digs, freshman Teisa Tuioti turned in a one of her most complete games with seven kills, a team-high 14 digs and five aces, a season high for the Vuls, and Alexandria Parisian finished with 12 kills and three block assists.
The Vul served a season-high 12 aces, against four errors, and they won a tight blocking battle 12-11. The dozen roofs were the Vuls’ second highest total this season, while the Urban Knights had their best effort in the department. Each team had 70 digs.
“We knew that UH-Hilo is a good attacking team so we had to be patient, not jump early, and work to seal the seam,” Urban Knights head coach Allen McCreary said in a school release. “As the stats showed, we blocked well enough for us to dig 70 balls and that tells us we are doing it correctly because we work to funnel the ball to our defenders to dig.”
His team was outhit .184-.129.
Middle Ashton Jessee added eight kills, on .333 hitting, two aces, two solo blocks and four block assists, Evelin Solyomvari had six kills and five block assists, Maile Powell compiled a double-double (16 assists, 10 digs) and Basia Sauni (23 assists, nine digs) neared one.
With Against Academy-Art hoping to extend the match to a fifth set, the Vuls pulled away from a 13-12 deficit in the fourth set by taking seven consecutive points on Tuioti’s serve.