AZUSA, Calif.--UH Hilo went tooth and nail with first-place Azusa Pacific through two sets on Monday night at the Felix Event Center.
In the third set, the hosts took the reigns of the match and the verdict, defeating the Vulcans 25-23, 27-25, 25-12 to remain on top of the Pacific West Conference. The Cougars improved to 5-0 in conference play and 9-4 overall, while the Vulcans saw its four-match win streak come to a close and are now 6-3 on the year and 2-1 in the PacWest.
The third set came as a stunner, after the first two sets could have gone either direction.
In the first set, the Vulcans trailed 17-12, but rallied back to tie things up at 20-20 after back-to-back kills by
Ashton Jessee.
Alexandria Parisian tied the match with a kill at 21-21, but the Cougars scored the next three points to take a 24-21 margin. Vulcan kills by
Teisa Tuioti and
Kiley Davis pulled the visitors back to within one point at 24-23, but a UHH service error ended the match in APU's favor, 25-23.
The second set began differently, with the Vulcans racing out to an 8-3 lead. UH Hilo still led at 15-9 and were seemingly in control of the set. A
Bria Beale kill made the count 22-17 in UH Hilo's favor, just three points away from taking the set. But that's when the Cougars stole the momentum, and essentially the match. They would score four straight points to crawl back to 22-21, although kills by Davis and
Evelin Solyomvari would give the Vulcans set point at 24-22. Three consecutive points later, the Cougars had set point, only to have that erased by a Tuioti kill.
But back-to-back putaways by APU's Aliyah Morrison and Natalie Klapp closed out the set (27-25). The Cougars scored 10 of the final 13 points of the game, and carried that momentum into set three. The home team broke out to an 8-4 lead and would never trail again, rolling to a 25-12 third set and match-clinching win.
Davis led UH Hilo with eight kills, hitting .278. Beale added seven kills, while Jessee had six kills, an .357 hitting percentage and five total blocks. Tuioti had a pair of aces and 11 digs, while
Mina Grant led the Vulcans in the latter category with 18 digs.
The Vulcans will continue this four-match southern California road swing with a Wednesday match in Irvine against Concordia.
