LIHU‘E — In a tightly-contested match of two top teams, the Stanford Cardinal came up with the big points when they needed them, knocking the Hawai‘i Warriors out of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation championship tournament, Thursday in Stanford, Calif.
Stanford (21-6), the top seed in the tournament, came away with the 3-0 victory (30-24, 30-28, 33-31) over fourth-seeded Hawai‘i (19-10).
Stanford saved a set point in the third when, trailing 31-30, Garrett Werner and Brad Lawson blocked a Jonas Umlauft attack to even things back up at 31-31. That was followed by two UH errors that gave Stanford the match, moving the Cardinal into the MPSF championship match.
Umlauft led the Warriors with 16 kills, while Joshua Walker had 15 and Steven Hunt had 13. Steven Grgas and Matt Rawson had five and four kills, respectively.
Setter Nejc Zemljak led the team with 47 assists, also coming up with 12 digs. Umlauft added six digs, as did Ric Cervantes.
Earlier in the day, Umlauft and Walker were honored as part of the American Volleyball Coaches Association All-America teams. Umlauft made first-team All-American, also being named Newcomer of the Year, while Walker was named to the second team.
Evan Romero and Lawson each led the Cardinal with 18 kills. Spencer McLachlin had eight, Kawika Shoji and Gus Ellis each had five and Werner ended with four.
Shoji led the way with 49 assists and 13 digs, while Romero and McLachlin each had seven digs.
Stanford got off to a strong start, outkilling UH in the opening set by a 20-12 margin. The Warriors hurt themselves with six service errors.
Hawai‘i seemed to turn things around and outplayed Stanford for much of the second set, winning the kill battle, 21-16. The Warriors comitted just four errors to the Cardinal’s nine, but still seemed to be oudueled on the most important points. UH led 26-25 before dropping three straight points, before two straight kills by Walker evened things up again at 28-28.
From there, Stanford got a kill from Romero, then a Rawson error ended the set, putting UH in the difficult 0-2 hole.
In the day’s first MPSF semifinal match, Cal State Northridge eked out a five-set victory, topping BYU 15-12 in the fifth.
The 3-2 win (26-30, 30-25, 28-30, 30-16, 15-12) means CS Northridge, the tournament’s No. 3 seed, will head into Saturday’s championship against No. 1 Stanford.
The match will begin at 7 p.m. PT (4 p.m. HT) at the Maples Pavilion.
