COLUMBUS, Ohio – National Champions. The title that the University of Hawai'i men's volleyball team will hold until 2022 after the Rainbow Warriors swept BYU in the NCAA Championship match Saturday night at the Covelli Center. Set scores were 25-21, 25-19, 25-16.
Making their fourth national title match appearance, the Rainbow Warriors (17-1) advanced to the championship match after defeating UC Santa Barbara in the semifinals and brought home the university's first NCAA team title since 1987. The title is also the first in program history.
Senior Rado Parapunov led all players with 13 kills in earning tournament Most Valuable Player honors. Freshmen Chaz Galloway and Guilherme Voss each did not commit an error in the match with six kills on nine swings each.
Setter Jakob Thelle led the Warriors to a .381 hitting percentage on the night with 36 assists while adding two kills of his own. Thelle ran the middle of the floor to just about precise perfection with 13 kills on 20 swings out of redshirt senior Patrick Gasman (7 kills, 1 error on 11 swings) and Voss (6 kills on 9 swings). Both Thelle and Gasman were named to the all-tournament team.
As a team, UH put pressure on the Cougars at the service line all night with Thelle leading the way with four aces and Parapunov and Cowell adding three each. One of the nation's top serving teams, BYU finished with only two aces including 0 by one of the nation's top servers Gabi Garcia Fernandez.
Fernandez led the Cougars (20-4) with 12 kills.
UH used a 3-0 run early in Set 1 for an 8-5 advantage. The Cougars closed to within one after their sixth block but the Warriors surged ahead by three after their first stuff of the night. A BYU ace that trickled the net tied the score at 17. The Cougars momentarily took the lead before the Warriors reeled off five straight points with Spyros Chakas at the service line for a 23-19 lead. The Cougars served long and Hawai'i took the opening set. Although the closest set of the night, UH had its highest offensive output with 17 kills in the set on a .400 hitting percentage.
Hawai'i took a 6-4 lead in the early going of Set 2. The Warriors made it 13-8 after ace by Thelle. Three more points made it a 6-0 run and a 16-8 lead. The Cougars scored three unanswered to close to within five at 17-12 forcing a Hawai'i timeout. But the Warriors put away the set with three straight aces by Parapunov, including one that hit 72 miles per hour on the radar gun. UH closed out the set on a kill by Cowell for a 2-0 lead in the match.
More tough serving helped the Warriors jump out to a 9-4 lead in Set 3. The lead was 12-6 before the Cougars scored three straight to pull within three. The six-point lead was cut to just two points when a BYU kill made the score 14-12 Hawai'i, but a 10-2 run to close out the match gave the Warriors their first national title.