Hawaii men’s volleyball coach Charlie Wade is keeping his New Year’s resolution simple this year.
“Just win baby,” he said Tuesday.
The No. 2 Rainbow Warriors volleyball team is poised to do a lot of that this season heading into back-to-back matches tonight and Friday against No. 7 Loyola Chicago, which will make its season debut at Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center at 7 p.m.
Hawaii started its season last week sweeping New Jersey Institute of Technology in two impressive performances before a combined attendance of nearly 11,000 fans.
The Highlanders, who were the second team outside of the preseason AVCA top 20 rankings with 15 votes, failed to score more than 17 points in any of the six sets played.
Hawaii hit .517 as a team overall with 11 hitting errors. UH outblocked the Highlanders 23-6 and had 11 aces to NJIT’s two in a start to the season fitting of a team looking to compete for a national championship.
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“It’s hard to start a season with new guys and we haven’t played in so long, but I’m really glad in how we played in those first two games,” sophomore outside hitter Adrien Roure said Tuesday.
Roure is one of five returning starters UH put on the floor to open both matches before going to its substitutes in the third set of each win.
The offensive numbers among the starters are even more eye-popping. In the first two sets of each match played, Hawaii’s starters combined for 47 kills and only four errors in 71 attempts for a blistering .606 hitting percentage.
“We are more mature,” said sophomore opposite Kristian Titriyski, who leads Hawaii with 23 kills and a 3.83 kills per set average. “This is my second year, Adrien’s second year, Louis (Sakanoko’s) third year and Tread (Rosenthal’s) third year, so we’ve got a lot of guys that have been in this program for more than a season now, so we know what to do and try to do better than last year and I think that’s the difference.”
That maturity was evident both in hitting and behind the service line, and arguably nobody was a better example of that than Sakanoko.
The junior outside hitter, who tied a school record with nine aces in his second career match with the ‘Bows, has had a tendency to be erratic from behind the service line. It was not uncommon to see Sakanoko launch a ball multiple rows deep into the crowd.
Against the Highlanders, he did not commit a hitting error and in Sunday’s sweep, he landed every serve in.
His 10 kills against NJIT came on only 15 swings for a .667 hitting percentage.
“Third year is usually the payoff year and they start to figure it out a little bit,” Wade said. “With maturity comes perspective and I think his perspective on what he is capable of and what he needs to do to help the team win is a lot better than what it was (two) years ago.”
The competition cranks up quickly with the Ramblers coming to town.
Loyola Chicago’s last appearance at the Stan Sheriff Center was a five-set win two years ago in both teams’ second match of the season.
The Ramblers are coming off a 25-4 season in which they won the MIVA and advanced to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championships in Columbus, Ohio.
That loss to Loyola Chicago is also the last time Hawaii has suffered a defeat in the month of January.
“Of course we are expecting them to play a lot better than (NJIT),” Titriyski said. “They are playing a lot faster. Tactically, they have, no disrespect to NJIT, better players, and I feel like we’re prepared for them.”
Titriyski has posted double figures in kills in 19 of his 25 games as a Rainbow Warrior.
Loyola Chicago assistant coach Dalton Solbrig played at UH from 2016-19 and was a member of two NCAA tournament teams, including the national runner-up squad in 2019.
RAINBOW WARRIOR VOLLEYBALL
At Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center
No. 2 Hawaii (2-0) vs. No. 7 Loyola Chicago (0-0)
>> When: Today and Friday, 7 p.m.
>> TV: Spectrum Sports
>> Radio: KKEA 1420 AM / 92.7 FM