MATCH STATS:
- Ohio State 3, Hawaii 0 (25-23, 25-18, 25-19)
- Ohio States moves to 31-3; Hawaii finishes the season at 27-6
- Ohio States advances to play BYU in National Championship match
- Columbus, Ohio
- Attendance: 4, 834
- Box Score
The Ohio State University Buckeyes swept the Warriors of University of Hawaii to advance to the NCAA National Championship match. With the sweep, OSU has set up a rematch of the 2016 national championship with BYU, where OSU won 3-0.
Errors plagued Hawaii throughout the match as they would commit 30, compared to the Buckeyes’ 21. OSU hit an impressive .358% while holding Hawaii to .256%; OSU also out-blocked the Warriors 11-1.
The Warriors were led by sophomore opposite Stijn van Tilburg with a team-high 13 kills. Senior outside hitter Kupono Fey finished with nine kills and a team-high eight digs, while fellow senior setter Jennings Franciskovic recorded 32 assists. Sophomore libero Larry Tuileta picked up seven digs.
For the Buckeyes, junior outside hitter Nicolas Szerszen led with 10 kills on a .409 hitting percentage while also picking up a team-high eight digs. Senior opposite Miles Johnson followed with nine kills and five digs, and junior outside hitter Maxime Hervoir added seven kills on a .49 hitting percentage. Senior middle blocker Driss Guessous hit a team-high .600% with eight kills.
OSU jumped out to an early 7-3 lead in the first set before a kill from Franciskovic started a Hawaii run, bringing the deficit to 9-10. Three errors in a row from Hawaii combined with two kills from the Buckeyes put OSU on top 15-11 at the media timeout. Out of the timeout, the Buckeyes pushed their lead to 17-13, prompting a timeout by Hawaii. Hawaii then used a 9-5 scoring run to tie the score at 22-22, forcing OSU to take a timeout. Johnson scored first out of the timeout, followed by two kills from Szerszen, giving OSU the first set 25-23.
The second set saw the Buckeyes use strong service runs to take a 9-8 lead. Szerszen scored three aces in a row to push the Buckeyes lead to 12-8 before Hawaii called a timeout. Out of the timeout, Szerszen led another three-point run for the Buckeyes to go up 15-8 at the media timeout. Kills from Guessous and Hervoir followed by a Warrior service error put the Buckeyes on top 17-10. Hawaii used a 7-5 scoring run to force OSU to take a timeout, up 22-17. Errors from Hawaii and kills from Guessous and Johnson helped OSU secure the second set 25-18.
Guessous opened up the scoring for the Buckeyes at the start of the third set as they would take a 7-6 lead. Szerszen’s tough serving sparked a 4-0 scoring run, making it 11-7 in favor of the Buckeyes. Errors from Hawaii pushed OSU’s lead to 15-10 at the media timeout. A Johnson kill followed by another Hawaii error put the Buckeyes up 17-10, forcing Hawaii to call a timeout. Franciskovic led a scoring run for Hawaii to close the deficit to four points, 15-19. However, that is as close as Hawaii would come as the Buckeyes outscored the Warriors 6-4 in the closing moments of the set, earning the third set win 25-19.
Ohio State Post Match Press Conference
UP NEXT:
Ohio State will now face the Cougars of BYU on Saturday, May 6th. This will be the first time the two teams have met this season. In the 2016 season, Ohio State faced BYU in the national championship match, which the Buckeyes won 3-0. The contest has a 7:00 p.m. ET start time.
PRESS RELEASES:
Courtesy: Ohio State Athletics
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State University men’s volleyball team (31-2) set up an NCAA Finals rematch against Brigham Young University (26-4) by eliminating the University of Hawaii (27-6) in straight sets lasting less than 90 minutes (25-23, 25-18, 25-19). Roles are reversed for the 2017 edition of the championship match as OSU is the top seed facing a third-seed Cougar squad.
The Buckeyes nearly led from start to finish, sitting on top for the entire first and third sets while trailing by a loan point 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 in the second stanza. A kill by Christy Blough pushed Ohio State ahead 4-3, representing the only lead change of the match.
Blough divvied out 31 assists to five different attackers, navigating a .358 hitting production. He connected with Nicolas Szersen for a team-high 10 digs while swinging .409 (10-1-22). Fellow Frenchman, Maxime Hervoir also hit above the .400 level on his seven kills. Driss Guessous started the night by terminating each of his first four spikes and ended at .600 on eight total kills (8-2-10). Szerszen also tacked on five points from the service stripe and a block assist to pace all players with 15.5 points.
Ohio State garnered an 11-1 edge in blocking which included a five-swat explosion in the opening frame. Blake Leeson was in on four (1s, 3a) of those first-set rejections and racked up seven stuffs by night’s end.
SET 1: The clash’s most hotly-contested set proved to be the first one. Ohio State own an advantage of four points several times during the set before a valiant counterpunch from the Rainbow Warriors locked it up at 22-all to cause a Buckeye timeout. Johnson and Szseszen then combined to bounce kills on three of the next four rallies, securing a 25-23 winner.
SET 2: Blough continued to steer the offense in all directions, pairing with five different teammates for multiple kills. The Buckeyes also added on four more team blocks and monstrous run at the service line from Szerszen, overpowering the Rainbow Warriors in the 25-18 triumph. With Szerszen toeing the baseline, Ohio State rattled off seven straight points to break up an 8-8 tie. After a Guessous kill ignited the stretch, the ball was handed over to Szerszen and his subsequent three consecutive aces. He landed one more haymaker two points later, acing Brett Rosenmeier at 15-8.
SET 3: Ohio State left little doubt in the third and final set, surging to a .647 team hitting percentage on 13 kills. Szerszen closed the door and took care of the last two OSU points with his fourth and fifth kills of the set on six error-free attempts.
Courtesy: University of Hawaii Athletics
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The University of Hawai’i men’s volleyball team saw its incredible season come to an end to the hands of defending national champion Ohio State, Thursday in the semifinals of the NCAA Championship at St. John Arena. Set scores were 25-23, 25-18, 25-19.
The Rainbow Warriors (27-6) were trying to reach their third national title match but instead saw their season come to an end in the semifinals for the second time in program history. The Buckeyes (31-2) advances to the title match where they will meet Brigham Young, a straight-set winner over second-seeded Long Beach State.
UH was led by opposite Stijn van Tilburg, who finished with a match-high 13 kills. In their last match, senior outside hitter Kupono Fey capped his career with nine kills and a match-high eight digs while setter Jennings Franciskovic recorded a match-high 32 assists with two digs, a service ace and the team’s lone block of the game. Fellow senior Hendrik Mol got the start after missing the team’s last match against Penn State due to injury. He tallied five kills and a dig.
The nation’s leader in blocking, the Warriors managed only one block in the match, compared to 9.5 for the Buckeyes. OSU also won the battle at the service line with six aces including five by Nicolas Szerszen, four of which occurred in the second set.
In the first set, OSU tallied 5.5 blocks before the media timeout to take a 15-11 lead. UH closed to within one at 20-19 after consecutive kills by Mol and van Tilburg and tied it at 22 after an OSU hitting error. But back-to-back kills gave the Buckeyes set point. After a UH point, OSU benefited on a questionable no-call on a double contact to take the first set.
With the score tied at 8-8 in Set 2, the Buckeyes scored seven straight behind the powerful serving by Szerszen, who ripped four aces during that run. OSU tallied three more blocks to lead by as much as eight before the Warriors inched to within five at 22-17. But the Buckeyes scored three of the final four points to take the set a 2-0 lead in the match.
Szerszen’s fifth ace gave the Buckeyes a 10-6 lead in Set 3. The Buckeyes held a cushion until Franciskovic’s ace pulled UH to within 18-14. Soon afterwards van Tilburg buried his 13th kill of the match to keep their deficit to four points. But Ohio State then scored three straight points to pull ahead, 22-15 from which the Rainbow Warriors could not recover from.
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