With a quick gesture, fuel to the fire in the rivalry between the University of Hawai‘i men's volleyball team and Long Beach State was amplified.
After the Rainbow Warriors took a pair of road matches against The Beach in late March, the two teams met up again in the Big West Conference championship match on April 25 in Irvine, Calif. The Rainbow Warriors had a 2-1 lead and served for match point five times until The Beach survived to force a fifth and final set.
The Beach jumped out to a comfortable 10-4 lead in the deciding set on a Wojciech Gajek kill. Gajek, a freshman opposite hitter, flashed double shakas to the Hawai‘i-partisan crowd before flipping his hands upside down. Long Beach State went on to win 20-25, 27-25, 22-25, 30-28, 15-11, winning the Big West tournament after Hawai‘i won the regular season title. Gajek had a match-high 27 kills.
Hawai‘i went on to earn the national No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, while Long Beach State earned the 3 seed. UH hosted USC in the national quarterfinals and won in four sets at the Stan Sheriff Center, while Long Beach State swept Loyola Chicago, setting up another matchup between the 'Bows and The Beach, this time in the national semifinals. The rivals will go at it on Saturday at UCLA's Pauley Pavillion at 3:30 p.m. HST on ESPN+, with the winner advancing to Monday's national title match.
While the action could be compared to the 'Horns Down' gesture meant to taunt the University of Texas and its 'Hook 'Em Horns' sign, the shaka represents more than the University of Hawai‘i. In 2024, the shaka was officially declared by Hawai‘i as the state's official hand gesture after it passed legislation.
Before the Rainbow Warriors boarded the team bus for the airport on Wednesday, multiple players were asked about the upside down shaka gesture. The memory remains fresh in their minds.
"It touched us, too," Hawai‘i standout outside hitter Adrien Roure said. "I think that's bad for them, because it's going to fire us even more. And we're really, really excited for that game and to get revenge."
Did UH players take the gesture personally?
"Of course we take that personally," said UH junior Louis Sakanoko, who was named to the AVCA All-America first team on Wednesday. "At the same time, I don't think it should matter that much. We should just play our game. We're not here to get too mad and play a game that we're not playing. So, we should just focus on what we know and what we will do, and the celebration after we win the national championship is the best thing to actually brag about."
The first national semifinal on Saturday will be a matchup featuring UC Irvine, which shocked No. 1 UCLA on its home floor on Saturday, taking on No. 4 Ball State.
Since the Big West branched off from the MPSF to create its own six-team men's volleyball conference in 2018, Hawai‘i and Long Beach State have been the standard-bearers from the get-go. The 'Bows and The Beach are the only two teams to have won regular season titles in the conference's existence. Additionally, one of the two programs have won every single conference tournament, with the exception of UC Santa Barbara in 2021. LBSU has won three national titles since 2018, while UH has won two.
On Saturday, the team looking to advance to the national championship match will have to beat their chief rival in order to do so. Hand gestures aside, that alone should provide enough motivation.
"Regular season, postseason, seems any time we're playing each other, it means something," Hawai‘i head coach Charlie Wade said. "Both teams are always highly ranked. League postseason or national postseason, they're big-time matches, and this one should be no different."
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Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
