Azusa Pacific stuffed UH-Hilo’s best weapons — blocking and balance — into a tomato can and kicked it down the street.
The Vulcans needed to find a way to win without their best stuff, but the Cougars had an answer for everything UHH threw at them.
APU, the top hitting team in the PacWest, blasted balls at a scorching .324 clip and pulled off a 25-20, 20-25, 25-14, 25-11 victory on Wednesday at UHH gym, stopping the Vuls’ six-match winning streak.
“It wasn’t pretty,” UHH coach Gene Krieger said. “They went to the NCAAs last year. They’re bigger than us and battle-tested. We wanted to serve them good enough like we did in Game 2.
“It was a shock that we won five on the road and then played the best team in the league. They hit .324 and nobody hits .324 against us. That shows we have work to do.”
In the second set, the Cougars knew the Vuls were targeting their freshman, pulled her and their serve-receive then passed nails. UHH had just one ace.
APU even outblocked UHH, 11-6. The Vuls entered as the top blocking team in the conference.
The Cougars (20-6, 16-2 PacWest) found holes in UHH’s block, hitting around, through or off high hands. When one shot didn’t work, they went to a second shot (tip, roll, or cut shot) — something the Vuls didn’t do against APU’s deep perimeter defense.
“We got frustrated and didn’t go to our second shot,” Krieger said. “We talked about if you get blocked and what are you going to do. We call it information gathering. But that’s part about us being a young team.”
UHH (18-6, 14-4) had too many empty attacks and finished with a .088 hitting percentage. Bria Beale and Alexandria Parisian had nine kills each, but both hit under .170.
Sara Wagenveld had an All-American day: 12 kills, zero errors, and a .632 hitting clip. Katarina Radisic added 15 kills and hit .414 while Aliyahi Morrison hammered 10 kills and hit .292.
The Vuls had a chance to jump into first place but are now fourth and behind APU, Biola (19-6, 15-3), and Chaminade (20-4, 14-4).
UHH still has a chance to grab its first postseason berth since 2011, but they have to run the table over their next four matches to get a spot in the West region ranking poll, which helps determine the eight postseason teams.
It wasn’t pretty from the start. In Game 1, UHH had 12 unforced errors, including getting blocked five times. APU dominated on both sides of the net. The visitors hit .478 and held UHH to a .053 percentage.
In the 25-20 second set, the Cougars fell back to earth and hit just .027. They had 14 giveaway points and continued to have trouble serving. They had three miscues in the set and finished with 10 service errors.
APU bolted to a 20-10 cushion in Game 3, behind a return of hot hitting with a .395 clip and cranked rockets at a .447 clip in the fourth set.
The good news for the Vuls is they could jump up the region poll with wins over Point Loma, ranked seventh, on Saturday, and at Chaminade on Saturday, Nov. 10.
“We didn’t get 18 wins by being a fluke,” Krieger said. “It’s do or die from here on out. We’re not done yet and we’re going to keep playing like it.”