Jan. 14, 2006

Box Score

The seventh-ranked University of Hawaii men's volleyball team (1-1 MPSF) hit for a combined .524 average in its 4-1 victory over UC Santa Barbara (2-3 overall, 1-1 MPSF).

Lauri Hakala and Matt Carere carried the Warriors as each recorded 23 kills and hit above .500.

The Warriors jumped out to a 1-0 lead after junior opposite Evan Patak was called for a blocking error on a play that would have given the Gauchos a 29-26 lead with the serve. Instead, Hawaii inched back to within one point and eventually tied the game at 30-30 on a Dante Dio kill. Hawaii recovered the lead at 34-33 on a kill from Hakala and won the match after an attack error by Patak at 36-34.

In game two, after trailing most of the match, the Warriors rallied to knot the score at 25-25. The Gauchos would use kills by Theo Brunner, Bryan Berman and Aaron Richman to wrestle the game away from the Warriors and tie the match 1-1.

In game three, the Warriors never trailed after being tied 15-15, and they continued to dominate in game four, trailing only once when the Gauchos held a 1-0 lead.

Individually, setter Brian Beckwith tallied 64 assists on 102 attempts for a .627 average on an errorless night for both setters.

On the Santa Barbara side, Patak came within one ace of a career-high with seven and recorded a season-high 25 kills.

Junior team captain Bryan Berman led the Guachos in hitting percentage with a .458 clip on 16 kills.