LIHU‘E — It began to look as if the dream may just be become a reality. A 25-23 opening-set victory put the Rainbow Wahine one step closer to knocking off the No. 1 ranked Penn State Lady Lions and grabbing
LIHU‘E — It began to look as if the dream may just be become a reality.
A 25-23 opening-set victory put the Rainbow Wahine one step closer to knocking off the No. 1 ranked Penn State Lady Lions and grabbing a spot in the 2009 NCAA Championship match in Tampa, Fla.
Unfortunately for the University of Hawai‘i women, they would not take those final steps and Penn State went on to top the Rainbow Wahine in four sets, 23-25, 25-18, 25-15, 25-18, winning its 101st consecutive match and earning the right to play for a third straight national championship.
With the loss, Hawai‘i finished the season 31-3. It is the 18th time in school history that they have won 30 or more matches in a season.
Slightly sweetening the day’s result was the news that Hawai‘i head coach Dave Shoji was named 2009 AVCA Divsion I Coach of the Year. Shoji passed the 1,000-win mark this season and led his team to a 28-match win streak, prior to Thursday’s defeat.
“What this game showed is that Penn State is a great team,” Shoji said after the loss. “We were doing things we wanted to do and we still couldn’t score.”
First team All-AVCA selection Kanani Danielson felt that Penn State certainly earned the victory.
“We all knew Penn State won every match of their season and we knew they were going to come back with fire,” she said. “It was our job to step up to the plate and give it everything we had, but they really had fresh legs the whole game.”
The first set was tight throughout, but UH managed to maintain a small lead behind Amber Kaufman’s three kills and two aces. Setter Dani Mafua had 14 assists in the 25-23 opening-set win.
Megan Hodge kept Penn State close with six kills.
It was just the sixth set Penn State had lost all season long, a major accomplishment in itself for UH.
The Lady Lions gained some early momentum in the second set and began to run away with the lead. They would not give an inch to any Rainbow Wahine attack and piled up six blocks in the set.
UH made a small run at the end to get back within striking distance, but it was too little, too late and Penn State had evened the match at one set apiece.
The third set was more of the same and Penn State took control early, blocking four Hawai‘i kill attempts and putting away 15 kills of their own.
Blair Brown had four kills, two blocks and two assists for Penn State, which was now one set away from taking on No. 2 Texas in the championship match.
In the fourth set, Penn State built up a 17-10 lead and looked to be cruising to victory, but Hawai‘i took five of the next six points to close the gap back to a three-point deficit.
That would be as close as they would get as the Lady Lions continued to dominate the net and block numerous Wahine spikes, grabbing a 24-18 lead and taking six match points. A service error ended the dream for UH and allowed Penn State to advance to Saturday’s title showdown.
Kanani Danielson led the Wahine with 14 kills, followed by Stephanie Ferrell’s 13. Danielson added 11 digs for her eighth double-double of the season.
The championship game will be played at 3 p.m. HT (8 p.m. ET) on Saturday from Tampa, and will be shown nationally on ESPN2.
