A night after leading No. 4 Hawaii to a sweep of UC Irvine, Dimitrios Mouchlias went to another level in Saturday’s five-set rematch on Saturday.
The sophomore opposite put away a career-high 31 kills in a.510 hitting performance and the Rainbow Warriors rallied from a 2-1 deficit to complete the series sweep of the Anteaters with a 21-25, 25-18, 25-27, 25-20, 15-11 victory in the regular-season finale at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, Calif.
Mouchlias flew past his previous best of 21 kills set on Jan. 31 in a loss at Ball State and hit.486 in the series with UC Irvine to help the Warriors (22-5, 7-3 Big West ) close the regular season on a four-match winning streak heading into this week’s conference tournament back home at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
“It’s nice to see him play at that level on back-to-back nights. We’re going to need that next week, ” UH coach Charlie Wade said. “I think overall we’re playing our best volleyball of the year at the right time.”
The Warriors secured the second seed and a bye in the Big West Championship with a sweep of UC Irvine in Friday’s series opener. They will open the tournament in the semifinals on Friday against the winner of Thursday’s quarterfinal match between No. 3 seed UC Santa Barbara and No. 6 Cal State Northridge.
Long Beach State is the top seed and will face No. 4 UC San Diego or No. 5 UC Irvine in Friday’s first semifinal match.
After a questionable call to end the third set, Hawaii left no doubt in the next two to pull out a five-set comeback for the second straight Saturday. UH came back from a set down and erased a 2-1 deficit on senior night against UCSB and again surged in the fourth and fifth sets to extend its winning streak in the series with UCI to 11.
UH outside hitter Spyros Chakas complemented Mouchlias’ performance with 16 kills and middle blocker Guilherme Voss contributed seven kills on 11 swings and was in on seven of UH’s 15 blocks.
Mouchlias’ production helped the Warriors overcome UC Irvine opposite Francesco Sani’s 24-kill performance. Freshman outside hitter Hilir Henno added 15 kills for the Anteaters.
“(UH assistant coach Josh Walker ) always includes in the scouting report that you have to outplay your counterpart at every position on the floor, ” Wade said. “Tonight you saw both sides leaning heavy on guys that were playing at a really high level and it was fun to watch.”
UC Irvine went on a 9-2 run midway through the opening set and held off a UH rally to take its first lead of the series. Mouchlias had a seven-point service run as part of a 10-2 UH surge and the Warriors pulled away to even the match.
The third set was a sideout duel and UH had a set point at 25-24 when Sani was credited with a controversial kill when it was ruled his attack went off a touch at the net. The Anteaters took the lead with a block and Doug Dahm’s kill in the middle gave the Anteaters the set and a 2-1 lead in the match.
UH took a 19-13 lead in the fourth set and forced a fifth when Chakas fired an ace on set point.
The teams traded runs in the fifth and UH halted a 3-0 UC Irvine surge with a triple block of Sani to take a 9-8 lead. After Sani came back with a kill to tie it again, a Chakas kill triggered a 5-0 run that included four UCI attack errors. The Anteaters fought off two match points before Chaz Galloway scored from the back row to end the match.