COLUMBUS, Ohio >> Many times this season, Hawaii coach Charlie Wade has found the right lineups at the right moments to pull out some key victories.
No matter what he tried on Saturday night, two-time defending champion UCLA seemingly had all of the answers in ending the Rainbow Warriors’ season in the semifinals of the NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championship.
The third-seeded Bruins dominated the majority of a 25-14, 25-23, 25-23 sweep of the Rainbow Warriors at Covelli Center to set up a national final Monday against Long Beach State.
The two teams who earned at-large berths into the eight-team tournament are the last two standing. Hawaii, the Big West champion, and Pepperdine, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation champion, fell short on Saturday.
“Congrats to UCLA. They played really well tonight and congrats on them advancing to the national final,” Wade said in his opening statement in the postgame press conference. “Really proud of our guys for the amount of growth and development we had this year and for us to battle through a lot of different stuff throughout the year and get into a national semifinal, couldn’t be prouder.”
The Rainbow Warriors, who finished their season at 27-6, tying the third-most wins in a season in program history, have never defeated the Bruins (22-6) in an NCAA Tournament setting and are 1-9 against the Bruins all-time in the postseason.
Sean Kelly had 13 kills and Zach Rama added 10 for UCLA, which dominated in all facets of the game.
The Bruins hit .370 and outblocked the Rainbow Warriors 11-4. They also outdug UH 34-22 and had six service aces to Hawaii’s three.
Adrien Roure had 12 kills to lead Hawaii, which hit a season-low .188. It was the first time Hawaii was held to a hitting percentage less than .200 all season, but Wade didn’t want to talk about the struggles offensively.
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“We’re going to keep it positive here,” Wade said. “We’re focused on this team doing well. UCLA played really good tonight. They served inbounds at a high percentage, higher than their average, and we battled as hard as we could.”
When asked about what takeaways UH could use from the two NCAA games to take into the offseason to get better, Wade didn’t have a chance to answer before setter Tread Rosenthal took the microphone.
“We’re motivated enough,” Rosenthal said. “That’s a rough loss for us and we’re ready to go next year.”
Hawaii started three different lineups in the three sets after getting blown out by double digits in the first.
The Bruins used an early 8-0 run to set the tone and Hawaii was held to five kills total. UH committed a net violation and a foot fault on a serve and allowed multiple balls to fall to the ground without much of an effort as UCLA pounced on Hawaii’s lackluster start.
Rama and Cooper Robinson had four kills each for the Bruins, who hit .417 in the opening set with five service errors that made no difference in the outcome.
“We’ve been playing our best volleyball in this tournament so far,” UCLA coach John Hawks said.
Wade’s first lineup tweak was to bring in Kainoa Wade on the right side for the second set and move Finn Kearney outside in place of Louis Sakanoko, who did not have a kill in six attempts.
UCLA led by as many as three points in the second set until Hawaii came back with a Roure kill followed by a Roure one-handed diving dig that led to a Wade kill that put UH ahead 23-22.
UCLA called a timeout and then closed out the set with three points to go up 2-0.
Sean McQuiggan and Kelly put down back-to-back kills and Wade was triple-blocked coming out of a UH timeout to end it.
“We just studied Tread and where he was on the court and what he does and some tendencies and our guys executed,” Hawks said. “That’s really what it came down to. They did some different things and put Fin on the left, brought Kainoa and it just takes a lot of intelligence on our guys’ part to be able to go out there and to adapt quickly.”
Wade went with Clay Wieter, who ended the first set in Sakanoko’s spot, at outside hitter with Roure to start the third set and brought in Ofeck Hazan in the middle for Kurt Nusterer.
An ace by setter Andrew Rowan, who had a match-high 34 assists, put UCLA up 14-8 in the third set, matching its largest lead.
The Bruins called a timeout after a Roure ace cut the deficit to 22-20. Sakanoko put down his only kill after subbing in for Wieter at 14-8. The teams traded service errors before a UH hitting error followed by a Cooper Robinson kill ended it.
“It’s pretty weird,” Roure said. “One part I’m really proud of our team what we accomplished this season, and of course, the other part, I know we have the potential to win this game. It’s hard.”
The loss was Hawaii’s first in the NCAA semifinals since 2017. UH advanced to the final in four consecutive trips to the tournament from 2019 to ’23, with two national championships.
UCLA was awarded a red card at the end of the match that accounted for UH’s final point in the third set.