  {"id":233960,"date":"2026-05-11T16:07:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=233960"},"modified":"2026-05-11T16:07:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T02:07:53","slug":"rainbow-warriors-ncaa-volleyball-national-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2026\/05\/11\/rainbow-warriors-ncaa-volleyball-national-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Rainbow Warriors capture <abbr>NCAA<\/abbr> Men\u2019s Volleyball National Championship"},"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\/manoa-hawaii-WINS.jpg\" alt=\"Rainbow Warrior volleyball\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-234034\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/manoa-hawaii-WINS.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/manoa-hawaii-WINS-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/manoa-hawaii-WINS-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The University of <span lang=\"haw\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span> Rainbow Warrior <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiiathletics.com\/sports\/mens-volleyball\">men&#8217;s volleyball<\/a> captured the program\u2019s latest and third national championship on May 11, defeating <abbr title=\"University of California\">UC<\/abbr> Irvine in the title match of the <abbr title=\"National Collegiate Athletic Association\">NCAA<\/abbr> Men&#8217;s National Collegiate Volleyball Championship.<\/p>\n<p>The Rainbow Warriors battled to victory in four sets: 15-25, 25-18, 25-18 and 25-20.<\/p>\n<p>Powered by an offense led by opposite Kristian Titriyski, the Rainbow Warriors secured the victory in front of a national audience, adding another historic chapter to one of the nation\u2019s best collegiate volleyball programs.<\/p>\n<p>Titriyski led <span lang=\"haw\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span> with 16 kills, followed by Adrien Roure and Louis Sakanoko with 15 and 12 kills respectively. Roure, Sakanoko and libero Quintin Greenidge anchored the defense with a combined 18 digs. The Rainbow Warriors hit 0.410 with 11 blocks.<\/p>\n<p>Sakanoko was also named the <abbr>NCAA<\/abbr> tournament most outstanding player.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It wasn\u2019t a perfect year, but it finished in a perfect way,&rdquo; head coach Charlie Wade said in a post-game interview.<\/p>\n<p>The win marks <span lang=\"haw\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s third <abbr>NCAA<\/abbr> championship in program history. The Rainbow Warriors end their season with a 30\u20135 record.<\/p>\n<p>This marks the Rainbow Warrior\u2019s third national championship, after impressive back-to-back national championship victories in 2021 and 2022. This is also the Rainbow Warriors\u2019 eighth appearance in the <abbr>NCAA<\/abbr> finals.<\/p>\n<p><abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa and <abbr>UC<\/abbr> Irvine have previously met seven times in postseason play but have not faced each other in the <abbr>NCAA<\/abbr> Tournament before. The \u2018Bows won both regular season matchups this season against Irvine.<\/p>\n<p>The title caps off another standout season for the Rainbow Warriors, who once again established themselves among the elite programs in collegiate volleyball.<\/p>\n<p>Read more at <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiiathletics.com\/news\/2026\/5\/11\/mens-volleyball-n-ka-oi-warriors-capture-mens-volleyball-national-title.aspx\">Hawaiiathletics.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The four set victory marks the Rainbow Warriors\u2019 third national championship in program history, all in the past five years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":234034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1362],"tags":[58,9,550,80],"class_list":["post-233960","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\/manoa-hawaii-WINS.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233960","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=233960"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234036,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233960\/revisions\/234036"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}