{"id":233935,"date":"2026-05-09T20:37:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T06:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=233935"},"modified":"2026-05-09T20:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T06:48:16","slug":"uh-win-semifinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2026\/05\/09\/uh-win-semifinals\/","title":{"rendered":"<abbr>UH<\/abbr> win sends team to <abbr>NCAA<\/abbr> Championship <abbr>vs.<\/abbr> <abbr>UC<\/abbr> Irvine"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> &lt; 1<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minute<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/volleyball_win_semis_2026.jpg\" alt=\"volleyball team celebrates\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-233936\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/volleyball_win_semis_2026.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/volleyball_win_semis_2026-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/volleyball_win_semis_2026-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The <abbr title=\"number\">No.<\/abbr> 2 <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiiathletics.com\/sports\/mens-volleyball\"><abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> men&rsquo;s volleyball team<\/a> is headed back to the national championship match after defeating Big West rival <abbr title=\"number\">No.<\/abbr> 3 Long Beach State men&rsquo;s volleyball in four sets in the <abbr title=\"National Collegiate Athletic Association\">NCAA<\/abbr> semifinals on May 9 at Pauley Pavilion at <abbr title=\"University of California, Los Angeles\">UCLA<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n<p>The Rainbow Warriors won 25-15, 18-25, 25-21, 25-22 in front of a national semifinal crowd in Los Angeles, advancing to the <abbr><\/abbr> title match for the first time since 2022.<\/p>\n<p><abbr>UH<\/abbr> used a balanced offensive attack and a dominant performance at the net to control the match. <span lang=\"haw\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> hit .337 as a team and outblocked Long Beach State 14.5 to 6.0.<\/p>\n<p>The night saw a career performance from middle blocker Justin Todd, double-figure kill performances from three pin hitters, and a gritty effort from setter Tread Rosenthal, who suffered an injury during the match.<\/p>\n<p>The Rainbow Warriors came out aggressively in the opening set, using pressure serving and strong transition offense to build an early lead. Consecutive blocks and a service ace helped <abbr>UH<\/abbr> pull away for the convincing 25-15 win.<\/p>\n<p>Long Beach State responded in the second set, evening the match before <abbr>UH<\/abbr> regained momentum. The Rainbow Warriors closed out the final two sets behind timely kills, disciplined defense and strong play at the net to secure the semifinal victory.<\/p>\n<p><abbr>UH<\/abbr> opposite Kristian Titriyski put away a match-high 14 kills and served up two aces. Outside hitter Louis Sakanoko added 12 kills on .360 hitting and Adrien Roure finished with 10 kills.<\/p>\n<p>The win sends <abbr>UH<\/abbr> to the <abbr>NCAA<\/abbr> championship match against <abbr title=\"University of California\">UC<\/abbr> Irvine, which advanced earlier in the day with a four-set semifinal win over Ball State.<\/p>\n<p>The national championship match will be played May 11 at Pauley Pavilion and televised on <abbr title=\"Entertainment and Sports Programming Network 2\">ESPN2<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n<p>Read more about the highlights from the match at <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiiathletics.com\/news\/2026\/5\/9\/mens-volleyball-shakas-up-mens-volleyball-knocks-off-long-beach-state-to-advance-to-ncaa-final.aspx\">HawaiiAthletics.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Rainbow Warriors defeated Long Beach State in four sets to advance to the <abbr>NCAA<\/abbr> men\u2019s volleyball championship match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":233936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1362],"tags":[58,9,550,80],"class_list":["post-233935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-uh-manoa","tag-manoa-athletics","tag-volleyball","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/volleyball_win_semis_2026.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233935"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":233941,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233935\/revisions\/233941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}