HONOLULU — In the final exchange of the handshake line, at the end of an emotionally draining night at the close of a season unlike any other he’d experienced, Hawaii men’s volleyball coach Charlie Wade greeted a familiar face.
UC Irvine’s All-Big West setter Brett Sheward, UH’s starting libero for its two NCAA championships, embraced Wade. They spoke for a moment before going their separate ways – Sheward and the Anteaters into the title match of the Outrigger Big West championships, Wade and the Rainbow Warriors into what is almost certainly the offseason.
“Just that we’re happy for each other,” Sheward said of the conversation in the Stan Sheriff Center’s press conference room a few moments later. “I mean, it was a good ride for five years. I’ll keep the rest between us.”
UH’s ride came to an end in the Big West semifinals, 26-24, 36-34, 25-15, a first in three years for the two-time defending champions of the event. It happened at the soft hands of Sheward and the callused ones of one of the best players in the NCAA, opposite Hilir Henno.
The left-handed Frenchman put aside his struggles in the teams’ last meeting in Irvine two weeks ago. He reaching deep into his bag for a variety of skilled shots and finished with 24 kills on 45 swings against just one attack error, hitting .511. UCI hit .376 as a team.
“I think you saw the national player of the year out there tonight,” Wade said. “Hat’s off to Irvine and looking forward to a great match tomorrow (in the championship).”
Second-seeded UCI (19-9) advanced to face top seed Long Beach State (24-2) in Saturday’s 7 p.m. final. The winner gets the Big West’s automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament. The loser is widely expected to merit one of the two NCAA at-large berths, as the Big West remained the consensus strongest conference this season with three teams ranked in the top five throughout.
Wade put the chances for fifth-ranked UH (23-7) to get an at-large nod during the selection show Sunday at “about zero.” That would end UH’s run of four straight NCAA appearances, during which it reached the national championship match each time.
The hopes of UH and the 6,251 in house were severely dampened when the ‘Bows could not overcome UCI in extra points in the first two sets. There was a tone of finality for the 2024 campaign when Maxim Grigoriev walked it off with an ace in the lopsided third. Wade gathered his players around for a talk on the court before they made a final circuit of the lower bowl to greet many of their lingering supporters.
“Absolutely it’s been a wonderful few years here in Hawaii,” said middle Guilherme Voss, a mainstay of the 2021 and 2022 title teams. “I think this year was like all the others, still very memorable. This team maybe more than any other one, because we had to deal with so many rough patches along the way, showed a lot of fight and I couldn’t be prouder of them.”
Even with a new, 17-year-old setter in Tread Rosenthal, UH was expected to remain a national title contender this season. But the tenor irrevocably changed when All-America senior hitter Spyros Chakas went down with a devastating knee injury against Irvine in the pre-conference finale in the Outrigger Volleyball Invitational on March 10.
UH did what it could to make things work, giving prominent roles to Keoni Thiim and French freshman Louis Sakanoko. Experienced seniors like Voss had to take on added leadership duties.
“It wasn’t easy,” said Thiim, the undersized, former serving sub who scrapped his way into the lineup. “Honestly, I’m just proud. There’s a lot of grit, a lot of ups and downs, especially when Spyros went down. It was just a fight every day in the practice gym. I’m proud I didn’t give up.”
The changes made for an up-and-down Big West season in which UH went 5-5. It could compete with the conference’s best but also frequently got dragged down by the BWC’s bottom teams.
Wade framed it as a life experience for his players.
“It’s just part of the journey,” he said. “You do this long enough, you’re going to experience a little of everything.”
UH put everything it had into the first two sets, both of which went to extra points. The second set especially – a record point total in the six editions of the Big West’s event – was emotionally draining for the Rainbow Warriors when they could not deliver on any of a whopping nine set points. The crowd stood up for a Viking clap each time, only to sit right back down.
Henno had kills for UCI’s last five points of the frame.
“He absolutely showed up and, like Charlie said, had a player of the year performance,” Voss said. “Sometimes there’s just nothing you can do to stop one of those guys, and he had a career night.”
All five of those kills were assisted by Sheward, who left UH last summer to pursue a starting opportunity at his natural position. He combined the best of his present and past roles with 38 assists and a match-high 10 digs Friday.
Like his previous visit in March, he said it was “really special to be back” and “I’m just super grateful for (Hawaii people) and my time here.”
“For the most part it’s been aloha. I haven’t heard anybody who’s been mad at me or thrown anything at me yet,” Sheward said with a smile beneath his new trademark, a bushy beard. “But no, it’s been great. Seeing those guys on the other side of the net is cool. I played with them for five years, so I know their game pretty well. Helped us develop a game plan. But yeah, it was about the execution tonight.”
Other than a blistering start to the match by middle Kurt Nusterer, who helped stake his team to an 8-2 lead with a six-point service run, UH could not execute on its service game. It had just four aces against 19 service errors.
“We were hitting .400 after two sets and down 2-0. High level stuff,” Wade said. “We were playing pretty good, and just a play here and a play there. Our serving wasn’t up to our standard … it wasn’t up for the challenge tonight. It allowed us to go on some runs, but in the end too many errors for us really to push through and win those sets.”
Conversely, he noted that Henno did not have an error on 17 serves, and the lone ball he tossed up that went out, UH played.
UCI’s win evened the season series at 2-2 and avenged a loss to UH at the Bren Events Center in last year’s Big West final.
UCI coach David Kniffin called UH an NCAA Tournament-worthy team and said it would be irresponsible for his group to read too much into the 3-0 decision, given how closely played the match was for 90 minutes.
“It’s such a fine line,” Kniffin said. “We need to be humble in victory here and go back and look at where we can go back and look at (the match). One touch that could make a difference down the road.”
Voss, a beneficiary of Nusterer’s serves getting UCI off-balance at the net, had seven kills on nine swings in the first set. But he finished with nine kills on 17 swings for the match.
Senior Chaz Galloway entered late in the first set and enjoyed one of his more productive matches in the last several weeks with nine kills against just one error on 15 swings (.533).
Sakanoko recorded a team-high 12 kills and Thiim added 11. Nusterer supplied eight.
Midway through the match, Wade moved Sakanoko to opposite for an ineffective Alaka‘i Todd, who had two kills against three errors on a minus-.100 night in the final match of his six-year career.
Long Beach State defeated fifth-seeded Cal State Northridge, 25-23, 22-25, 25-20, 25-22 in Friday’s first semifinal.
Beach players enjoyed it when a couple thousand UH fans cheered on CSUN when it evened the match at a set apiece.
“We all decided we’re going to use that energy to our advantage and just avoid the noise and just bring the energy to our guys,” Beach hitter Sotiris Siapanis said.
Said Beach coach Alan Knipe, “I just think it’s one of the most respectful things that could happened. That’s the way we look at this program, to be honest with you. I would be shocked if they’d be coming out chanting, ‘Go Beach.’ The noise and the energy, that’s awesome.”
Libero Mason Briggs said, “It’s respect to us. Let’s use that. It’s cool, regardless, just for volleyball, that you have people coming in and cheering for a match that’s not even their match.”
The Beach is going for its first Big West championship since the first year of the event in 2018. UCI is going for its first.
LBSU is 1-2 in Big West finals and UCI is 0-1.
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.