When the No. 4 University of Hawai‘i men's volleyball team was seeking extra motivation in a tight match on Wednesday night, all the Rainbow Warriors had to do was look around.
A weekday turnstile crowd of 5,880 showed up at the Stan Sheriff Center to support the 'Bows, who improved to 9-0 for the 2025 season with a 23-25, 25-20, 25-19, 20-25, 16-14 squeaker over No. 9 Stanford.
"It really is amazing, the number of people coming out and supporting us on a Wednesday," head coach Charlie Wade said. "Can't be more grateful and humbled by that."
With the exception of the 2021 season in which fans were not permitted to attend due to local COVID restrictions, Hawai‘i has led the country in attendance every season since 2015. Prior to Wednesday, the Rainbow Warriors had not played at home since a Jan. 17 sweep over Princeton. The 'Bows were also fresh off a pair of wins at BYU and 5,000 boisterous fans at the Smith Fieldhouse over the weekend.
"It's a little different. I think on the road, you have that little fire, just like, F everybody, let's just win by ourselves," said sophomore setter Tread Rosenthal, who distributed a match-high 48 assists. "Coming back, we just kind of lost it a little bit and just weren't fully focused."
After a sloppy start to the match in which Stanford jumped out to an 11-6 lead in the first set, Hawai‘i won sets 2 and 3 handily. Despite leading the 'Bows with a team-high 15 kills, freshman Kristian Titriyski was benched by Wade in the end of the fourth set and the beginning of the fifth, yielding to Kainoa Wade, Charlie's son.
Redshirt junior middle blocker Kurt Nusterer keyed an 8-0 run from the service line in the third set during an individual performance that he said was otherwise not up to his standards. As one of the veterans on the team, Nusterer acknowledged UH's young squad has left plenty room for improvement.
Echoing those sentiments was Wade, who believes his team's ceiling is as high as it gets.
"It seems like we can play really good for spurts, and it's just maintaining it. I think we're good enough to be the best team. We're just not that team often enough right now," he said. "The positive is that we're able to find a way to win when we're not playing well. Obviously the crowd, I think, helped tonight, but we did the same thing last week on the road.
"We're just not at that level where we really expect to play like one of the best teams each and every night. We're kind of doing it for a set here, set there. I'm hopeful that by the time we get to March and April, we will be more consistent."
The Rainbow Warriors close out their series against Stanford on Friday at 7 p.m. in a white-out game, where fans are encouraged to wear white. To mark the occasion, the Rainbow Warriors will wear their brand new white tapa uniforms after debuting their new kelly green jerseys on Wednesday. Prior to the series finale, the 'Bows will play their annual alumni game at 4:30.
"Last year, when we played these guys on a Friday night, there were 9,000 people there, so it'd be awesome if we could get near that number on Friday," Wade said of the Stanford finale. "Looking forward to playing in front of a good crowd again on Friday."
