Wahine down San Jose State for 6th consecutive sweep
· Yahoo Sports
For Hawaii women’s volleyball coach Joshua Walker, every match is about playing to a certain standard he expects from his team.
The Rainbow Wahine were inefficient at times on Saturday night against San Jose State, but it’s hard to complain after a sixth consecutive sweep that Hawaii earned with a 25-20, 25-13, 25-13 win over the Spartans.
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A Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 4,831 saw Hawaii take a two-match lead on the rest of the Mountain West Conference after a weekend that saw UC Davis and UTEP, two of the preseason favorites, lose twice.
Hawaii improved to 14-3 overall and 6-0 in conference play with its 13th win in its last 14 matches.
UH has won 18 consecutive sets and 34 of its last 39 overall.
“We talk about our standards all of the time when we’re practicing and trying to get better,” Walker said. “The game is another opportunity to keep building on it. We want to make sure we’re playing well, but we’re still far away from where we need to be.”
Hawaii sophomore Cha’lei Reid led the team in kills for the second straight night with 11 playing on the left side with Tali Hakas out for a second straight match with a lower leg injury.
Reid had six of her kills in the third set and middle Miliana Sylvester had four of her nine kills in the same set in which Hawaii hit .414 with only two errors.
Hawaii started the night matching its entire total in Friday’s sweep with nine hitting errors in the opening set but rallied to end up hitting .245 as a team.
UH held San Jose State to a minus-.033 hitting percentage.
“I think our offense could have been more efficient, but we ended good,” Sylvester said. “We have such a deep team and so every single win we get is a full team win.”
Sylvester was in on five of Hawaii’s eight blocks and sophomore Maeli Cormier provided eight kills and hit .583 on the right side.
Cormier had 18 kills and two errors in the two matches against the Spartans, who dropped to 6-11 overall and 1-5 in MWC play.
Junior setter Adrianna Arquette finished with 30 assists, eight digs, two aces, two blocks and two kills and Kahea Moriwaki recorded her first two aces of the season.
Hawaii finished with seven total.
“Whether it is serving or the scrapiness of our defense or having so many options offensively either at the pins or in the middle to put away the ball I think is really beneficial for us,” Sylvester said.
Moriwaki’s first ace the season came on UH’s second point of the match. The Spartans led 5-3 before Hawaii rallied with a 12-6 run to take a 15-11 lead at the media timeout.
Arquette blasted a kill at the net off of a SJSU overpass to prompt the Spartans to call timeout down 18-14.
San Jose State had five blocks in the opening set, but Sylvester closed out the first set with a kill off an overpass to extend UH’s consecutive sets streak won to 16.
Four different Rainbow Wahine had an ace in the set.
“We wanted to be more efficient offensively,” Walker said. “We kind of struggled a little bit with that tonight and it was mostly just us giving points away. It’s one thing when they are playing and they are scoring, but they had (20) points in the first set and we gave them nine of those. That is how they get to 20.”
Arquette had an ace during a six-point scoring run from behind the service line to help Hawaii take the second set.
Rachel Purser had a kill and then a solo stuff to put UH ahead 15-10 and Cormier put down her sixth kill in her ninth swing to make it 19-10.
Hawaii, which had five blocks in the set, ended it on an ace from Cameron Holcomb.
UH’s 14 kills in the third set were a match high.
Hawaii will hit the road next week to play Wyoming on Thursday and Saturday.
Wyoming (10-7, 3-3) defeated Air Force twice this weekend.