UH men’s volleyball takes 5-setter against Long Beach State on the road

Hawaii men’s volleyball coach Charlie Wade doesn’t have many firsts left to add to the resume. He got a big one Friday, though, earning his first Big West regular-season victory over Long Beach State at the LBS Financial Credit Union Pyramid with a dramatic 26-24, 23-25, 25-19, 20-25, 15-12 win to open Big West play. Hawaii sophomore opposite Kristian Titriyski, who started for the first time in more than two months, put down the game-clinching kill for his team-leading 13th of the match, helping No.

3 Hawaii (18-3, 1-0) defeat the second-ranked Beach (14-3, 0-1) on the road for the first time since 2015, when both teams played in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation. “Coming and getting a win against a Top 5 team on the road, and more significantly, a league win, the first match of league play, that one is probably a win against the field,” Wade said. Hawaii had to persevere through the match after losing Louis Sakanoko to cramps midway through the third set.

Setter Tread Rosenthal, who battled cramps for the final two sets and was effectively playing on one leg in the fifth, refused to come off the court. Rosenthal finished with 35 assists, seven kills and five blocks and set a perfect ball to the left side on UH’s second match point that Titriyski sent bouncing hard off the floor to end UH’s first five-set match of the season. “Gutty performance with Sakanoko going down and Finn (Kearney) stepping up and Tread was hobbled almost the whole time, it was a good team win,” Wade said.

“I was never seriously considering (taking) Tread out. He would have to be a hard no-go. Him on one leg is better than most.