HILO, Hawaii--Remember that time the Vulcans were shorthanded, down three players and lost on Friday night?
On Saturday night, just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Hawaii Hilo lost a fourth starter prior to the start of their match-up with Chaminade, and the predictable happened--The visiting Silverswords won in three sets, 25-11, 25-15, 25-23.
Chaminade improved to 11-9 on the season and to 6-6 in the Pacific West Conference. The Vulcans are now 5-7 in league play and are 8-11 on the year.
The MASH until on the Hawaii Hilo bench featured four players who start and see significant minutes--including two of their three top hitters (
Siera Green and
Lucee Fitzgerald), and setter
Sha Rae Niu. Joining the list tonight was the team's leading digger,
Mina Grant, who also happens to rank second in the PacWest in that category.
"I can't remember ever having four starters out in all my years of coaching," said Vulcan head coach
Gene Krieger, who has been in this business for nearly 40 years. "We played players tonight that haven't seen much court time all year, and in some cases hadn't played back row all season.
"It wasn't like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, it was like building a puzzle from scratch."
The match was really Chaminade's from the opening serve as they ran out to a 9-3 lead in the first set. They never trailed in that game, hitting .370 and running away to a 25-11 win. In the second set,
Evelin Solyomvari's kill gave UHH their first lead of the night at 1-0, but the Silverswords would soon pull away, hitting a robust .517 in the set to take a 2-0 lead (25-15).
The Vulcans rallied back in the third set, finally posting their first block of the night to tie it at 2-2. The home team had a 10-5 lead and later led 18-15 after a
Kiley Davis block, but the Silverswords would score 10 of the next 13 points to put down the tired Vulcans. UH Hilo would lead 23-21 after an
Ashton Jessee block, but Chaminade scored the final four points for the victory.
Jessee, a freshman, led the Vulcans in kills for the second straight night, this time with nine (she had 16 against Dominican on Friday). She also had two service aces. Solyomvari had six kills, and
Trixie Croad led her team with nine digs. But the Vulcans hit .080 on the night and had just six total blocks.
Kira Long led Chaminade with 14 kills and Emma Tecklenburg had 13 digs. The Silverswords also had 20 blocks on the night, led by Brooke Bell and Terezie Cernosek with five each.
The Vulcans will remain home for a Friday match with Notre Dame de Namur, and will then play Concordia on Monday night (Oct. 30).
"I am glad we have a week to try and get healthier and get some of these people back, hopefully, " Krieger added.
