Sorry this is late, my connection has been very quirky lately.
If you didn't see the match Saturday night at the Special Events Arena here in Honolulu between the University of Hawaii and UCLA you only missed the best match that will be played this year. But don't worry, you can see a replay on March 1 and March 2 when UCLA returns. Somebody should call Prime Sports or ESPN and suggest that they show these matches. I'm sure they will be tremendous matches also. Was this match televised on the mainland at all. I know it was live on TV here in Hawaii, as several of my friends told me they saw me on TV.
The final scores were 16-14, 12-15, 8-15, 15-8, and 16-14 with Hawaii prevailing. This was the most intense match I've ever witnessed. this one match alone makes it worth spending the night waiting in line to get season tickets (front row!!!). UCLA had come back in game 1 to take a 14-10 lead, then squandered 12 (count 'em, 12) game points before Hawaii came back to win the game. The next game, Hawaii was up 10-2 before running out of energy (temporarily). the rally scoring fifth game was so intense all 9000+ fans were on their feet most of the game, and the roar was deafening. Two of my friends are going to bring ear plugs to the next match.
I would have to say right now that the Player of the Year contest looks like a battle between Yuval Katz of UH and Paul Nihipali of UCLA, both of whom were incredible Saturday night. For some inexplicable reason Nihipali was left off the all-tournament team, and was even pulled from the game for a while Scates seems to be down on him, and I'm not sure why. He was nearly unstoppable, and is truly the complete package as he showed by digging a number of blistering hits. Can anybody enlighten me as to the possible reasons for his being in Scate's doghouse?
See you all at the NCAA finals, and probably watch the same two teams.
In article <4elnvh$...@nuhou.aloha.net>, <og...@aloha.net> writes:
> If you didn't see the match Saturday night at the Special Events Arena > here in Honolulu between the University of Hawaii and UCLA you only > missed the best match that will be played this year. But don't worry, > you can see a replay on March 1 and March 2 when UCLA returns. Somebody > should call Prime Sports or ESPN and suggest that they show these > matches. I'm sure they will be tremendous matches also. Was this match > televised on the mainland at all. I know it was live on TV here in > Hawaii, as several of my friends told me they saw me on TV.
> The final scores were 16-14, 12-15, 8-15, 15-8, and 16-14 with Hawaii > prevailing. This was the most intense match I've ever witnessed. this > one match alone makes it worth spending the night waiting in line to get > season tickets (front row!!!). UCLA had come back in game 1 to take a > 14-10 lead, then squandered 12 (count 'em, 12) game points before Hawaii > came back to win the game. The next game, Hawaii was up 10-2 before > running out of energy (temporarily). the rally scoring fifth game was so > intense all 9000+ fans were on their feet most of the game, and the roar > was deafening. Two of my friends are going to bring ear plugs to the > next match.
> I would have to say right now that the Player of the Year contest looks > like a battle between Yuval Katz of UH and Paul Nihipali of UCLA, both of > whom were incredible Saturday night. For some inexplicable reason > Nihipali was left off the all-tournament team, and was even pulled from > the game for a while Scates seems to be down on him, and I'm not sure > why. He was nearly unstoppable, and is truly the complete package as he > showed by digging a number of blistering hits. Can anybody enlighten me > as to the possible reasons for his being in Scate's doghouse?
> See you all at the NCAA finals, and probably watch the same two teams.
I agree. That was the best single game I have ever seen and possibly the best match I have ever seen (rivalled only by the recent high school struggles between Punahou and Kamehameha). Besides the closeness of the first and fifth games, what made it great was that Hawaii was able to win both games (unlike the great Penn State match in last year's tournament semi-finals). Not to mention the deafening crowd, of course.
For you rally-scoring detractors, the "true" score in the fifth game was Hawaii 2, UCLA 1 (27 sideouts).
Interestingly the UCLA had three starters from Hawaii (Stein Metzger, Brian Wells, Fred Robins) whereas Hawaii had three starters from Israel (Katz, Sivan Leoni, Naveh Milo) and only one from Hawaii (Aaron Wilton). Robins, the true freshman from Waimanalo, finished with 23 kills for UCLA, second only to Nihipali's 25. Katz wound up with 35, despite having only 2 in the losing third set.
In article <NEWTNews.823034663.11376.oee...@pixiuser.pixi.com>, Mike Ching
<oee...@mail.pixi.com> wrote: > In article <4elnvh$...@nuhou.aloha.net>, <og...@aloha.net> writes:
> > If you didn't see the match Saturday night at the Special Events Arena > > here in Honolulu between the University of Hawaii and UCLA you only > > missed the best match that will be played this year. But don't worry, --snip #1-- > > The final scores were 16-14, 12-15, 8-15, 15-8, and 16-14 with Hawaii > > prevailing. This was the most intense match I've ever witnessed. this --snip #2-- > For you rally-scoring detractors, the "true" score in the fifth game > was Hawaii 2, UCLA 1 (27 sideouts).
--snip #3--
Can we PLEASE get rid of the cursed "Rally Scoring" for the fifth game? Why does volleyball insist on changing one of its most basic rules - that you have to be serving to score points - just because it's the fifth game?
Whenever I attend a volleyball match, and they anounce that the fifth game is rally scoring, I stand up and BOO! Please feel free to do the same...
In article <4elnvh$...@nuhou.aloha.net>, <og...@aloha.net> writes:
> I would have to say right now that the Player of the Year contest looks > like a battle between Yuval Katz of UH and Paul Nihipali of UCLA, both of > whom were incredible Saturday night. For some inexplicable reason > Nihipali was left off the all-tournament team, and was even pulled from > the game for a while Scates seems to be down on him, and I'm not sure > why. He was nearly unstoppable, and is truly the complete package as he > showed by digging a number of blistering hits. Can anybody enlighten me > as to the possible reasons for his being in Scate's doghouse?
For the record, this was the announced all-tournament team: Phil Eatherington, Ball State; Ivan Contreras, Penn State; Jason Ring, Hawaii; Erik Pichel, Hawaii; Brian Wells, UCLA; Stein Metzger, UCLA; MVP -- Yuval Katz, Hawaii.
Two of the selections seem a bit off. Though I love setter Erik Pichel's athleticism (he reminds me of Eric Sato when he's hitting in warmups), Pichel was benched in the third game against UCLA for Curt Vaughan. I disagreed when coach Wilton left Pichel on the bench when game 4 started, but the Rainbows won both game 4 and the exciting game 5 with the purple- haired Vaughan at setter. Pichel looks to be a quicker and more accurate with his sets than Vaughan, but Vaughan is about 3 or 4 inches taller and can handle the high pass with his jump sets.
The other selection that seemed odd was Brian Wells. Wells is, of course, a good player; but is by no means the go-to guy of the Bruins (which is Nihipali). Wells had 15 kills in the Hawaii match; Nihipali had 25 with freshman Fred Robins adding 23. Probably the reason Wells was voted to the tournament team was that Scates chose to sit both Nihipali and Robins out in the first match of the tournament vs. Penn State. I'm not sure if it was because he had disciplinary problems with these players, or that he just wanted to give some extra playing time to the rest of his talented roster.
As an aside, I noticed that a player named Vallely often subbed in to serve for the Bruins. Is this, by any chance, the son of John Vallely, the former UCLA basketball player?
In article <NEWTNews.823242858.16446.oee...@pixiuser.pixi.com>, Mike Ching
<oee...@mail.pixi.com> wrote: > As an aside, I noticed that a player named Vallely often subbed in > to serve for the Bruins. Is this, by any chance, the son of John > Vallely, the former UCLA basketball player?
