Vulcans Serve Past Felician for First Win

Many coaches often give the standard coach-speak answer of taking care of “serve-receive” when asked about how their team needs to win a match.

On Friday night, it was the biggest piece of separation between the University of Hawai’i at Hilo and Felician College.

UH-Hilo racked up 10 aces and took advantage of many more bad passes to cruise past Felician in straight sets to close out the second day of the Hilo Naniloa Hawai’i Challenge.

Set scores were 25-6, 25-8, and 25-16.

Six of those 10 aces came from junior Morgan Lees, a transfer from Long Beach State in her second year with UH-Hilo. All of those aces came in a 15-0 scoring run that quickly separated the Vulcans from their New Jersey opponents.

“It wasn’t just serving underhand over the net. It was some quality serves,” said UH-Hilo assistant coach Carl McGown. “They were nice, not high, and a lot of moving around. They were some quality serves.”

That run put UH-Hilo ahead by the score of 19-3 late in the first set. Lees added four kills in the set, including the closing kill on the left side of the court to wrap up the set.

For the night, Lees tallied nine kills in 14 swings, hitting .648 for the match. She didn’t play in the third set.

UH-Hilo (1-0) went on another lengthy scoring run in the second set, scoring 11 straight points on the serve of another Division I transfer, sophomore Lauren Spreen. The former Albany Great Dane put down two aces in that run, transforming a close set to a runaway at 18-6. The Vulcans closed out the set on a 7-2 run.

“We were bigger and stronger than they were,” McGown simply said after the match. “We passed the ball better, and we dug better.”

The one-sided nature of the match allowed McGown to give setter Sienna Davis a rest for most of the third set, allowing Kamehameha-Hawai’i graduate Harley Woolsey to get some meaningful action in for the rest of the match. Davis, a three-year starter at setter, picked up a pair of kills and 19 assists before departing.

What McGown was happy with was that his team didn’t loosen up mess around during the match. He said that he liked that his team continued to play hard and respected the Golden Falcons.

Kyndra Trevino-Scott led UH-Hilo with 10 kills and a .714 hitting percentage. The Vulcans hit .382 for the match. Libero Mina Grant added a game-high 10 kills.

Felician (1-6) hit .083 for the night, tallying just 17 kills to UH-Hilo’s 42. Freshman Carmen Shaw led the way with six.

McGown coached UH-Hilo Friday night in place of Tino Reyes, who was on Molokai for his father’s funeral, which is scheduled for Saturday.

Both teams will wrap up the Hilo Naniloa Hawai’i Challenge with a rematch at 5 p.m. at the UH-Hilo Gymnasium. Earlier, undefeated Cal State Los Angeles will meet Chaminade at 10 a.m. Cal State LA defeated Chaminade in three sets on Friday afternoon.

Felician 6 8 16 – 0

Hawai’i-Hilo 25 25 25 – 3