USC
<b>*Hawaii<b>
No. 2 Hawaii Men's Volleyball Defeats USC
March 09, 2004 | Men's Volleyball
March 9, 2004
LOS ANGELES- Pedro Azenha had 22 kills, 5 blocks and 4 aces and teammate Delano Thomas added 18 kills and another 4 aces to lead the No. 2-ranked Hawaii men's volleyball team to a 30-28, 28-30, 30-20, 30-19 win over unranked USC in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation match on Monday (March 8) in USC's North Gym.
Hawaii snapped a 3-match losing streak to up its record to 12-5 overall and 9-4 in the MPSF. USC had its 3-match winning streak ended while dropping to 6-13 overall and 4-8 in the MPSF. It was the Trojans' seventh consecutive loss to UH.
Azenha hit .471 and Thomas was at .361. Jose Delgado added 13 kills (hitting .571) and 9 digs for Hawaii, while Maulia LaBarre had 6 blocks and 2 aces.
For USC, Joao Grangeiro had 11 kills and 11 digs, Jeff Bailey and Blake Tippett each had 9 kills, Pedro Leal served 3 aces and Chris McKniff had 3 blocks.
The Warriors outhit (.482 to .230) and outblocked (10.5 to 4.5) the Trojans while also serving more aces (10 to 5).
The first 2 games see-sawed all the way, but Hawaii was in control throughout the last 2 games. The first game was tied at 27-27 before the Warriors scored the 2 consecutive points on a block by LaBarre and Brian Beckwith followed by a kill by Thomas to open up all the cushion it needed. The second game was knotted at 25-25 when a Leal kill, a Hawaii hitting error and a block by McKniff and J.T. Gilmour gave USC an edge that it held. But it was all Hawaii the next 2 games. The Warriors pulled away from a 7-7 tie in the third game on a pair of Trojan hitting errors sandwiching a Delgado kill to open up a 3-point lead which it never relinquished and then Hawaii started the final game by jumping out to a 6-1 lead and never looked back.
The teams meet again on Tuesday (March 9) at 7 p.m. in USC's North Gym.
