Reigning men’s volleyball national champion Hawaii will have a chance to defend its title after edging Ball State in a five-set NCAA tournament semifinal match, 28-26, 19-25, 20-25, 25-20, 15-11, on Thursday at Pauley Pavilion in Los Angeles.
The Warriors play fellow Big West Conference member Long Beach State for the title Saturday (2 p.m., ESPN2). The Beach, top-seeded in the tournament, also won in five today, taking down host UCLA in the first semifinal.
UH was down in sets 2-1 to the Cardinals, who beat the Warriors twice in January in Muncie, Ind. (Hawaii was without three starters in those matches).
This time, the Warriors turned it around in the fourth set, took command early in the fifth with four aces, and won match point when coach Charlie Wade was successful with a replay challenge to overturn a Ball State point.
“Just have a lot of aloha for everybody in that program and thought they had an amazing season and they played at a really high level. They were serving unbelievably well through three sets,” Wade said of the Cardinals.
“Congrats to Ball State on a great year and then proud of our guys just to gut it out. It wasn’t pretty. In the second set we hit some balls out kind of uncharacteristically. But the guys stayed confident and our defense got a little better, our serve receive tightened up and we were able to get the win.”
Spyros Chakas and Dimitrios Mouchlias led UH with 19 kills each as the Warriors improved to 26-5 overall. That includes two regular-season losses at Long Beach State, and a victory over LBSU for the Big West championship on April 23 at home.
Against Ball State, Hawaii cruised to a 20-12 lead in the first set, but the Cardinals battled back until Cole Hogland’s second ace ended it after Ball State fought off three set points and the Warriors one.
Hawaii scored the first three points of the second set, but Ball State led 20-10 and Angelos Mandilaris closed it with the ninth of his 15 kills. Kaleb Jenness was team-high with 18 for Ball State, which fell to 23-4.
Ball State led the third set all the way after a three-point run put the Cardinals ahead 7-5.
Hawaii was in command most of the fourth set, after three kills in a row from Chakas gave the Warriors an 11-4 lead.
UH went up 4-0 in the fifth-set race to 15 points, with two of the points coming on aces by Jakob Thelle. Aces from Chakas and then Mouchlias made it 7-2.
Hawaii went up 14-9, and it appeared that Ball State had fought off match point a third time to make it 14-12. But Wade’s challenge of an apparent pancake dig by the Cardinals resulted in a change by the officials to a Hawaii point, ending the match.