Hawaii beats UCSB to avoid reverse sweep

UC Santa Barbara won the race to 15 in every set except the one that mattered.

Junior Keoni Thiim had all four of his kills in the fifth set to help No. 5 Hawaii rally to hold off No. 20 UC Santa Barbara 25-21, 26-24, 23-25, 21-25, 15-12 tonight.

A SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 8,924 watched the Gauchos (7-16, 0-7 Big West) nearly pull off a reverse sweep before UH pulled together in the fifth set.

Freshman Louis Sakanoko had three of his team-high 15 kills in the fifth set that ended with the entire arena booing loudly after UCSB was given a point to make it 14-12 due to a red card issued to Hawaii.

Thiim made sure those boos switched to wild cheers when he put down match point to end it after more than three hours.

Hawaii (20-4, 3-3) avoided a reverse sweep to record its third consecutive 20-win season and move to .500 in conference play with four games to go.

Hawaii honored six seniors after the match despite not being done playing at home.

UH will close out the regular season playing two matches at UC Irvine and two at UC San Diego before hosting the Big West tournament April 18-20.

Middle blocker Guilherme Voss, one of the seniors honored after the match, hit .750 with 12 kills and ended the two matches against the Gauchos with 21 kills in 27 swings with one error.

Alaka’i Todd, another senior honored after the match, also had 12 kills with six block assists.

Sophomore Kurt Nusterer had a career-high 10 blocks for UH, which had 18.5 in the match.

UCSB led by at least two points at the 15-point media timeout in each of the first four sets.

Geste Bianchi hit .300 with a match-high 32 kills for the Gauchos, who have lost 18 in a row to Hawaii.