IRVINE, Calif. - The Big West on Tuesday unveiled its three major award winners for the 2023 men’s volleyball campaign following the conclusion of the OUTRIGGER Big West Men’s Volleyball Championship, presented by The Hawaiian Islands.
The Big West Player of the Year for the second successive season is star Hawai’i setter Jakob Thelle, with the Rainbow Warriors’ veteran leader, Charlie Wade, voted unanimously by five peers as The Big West Coach of the Year. Maxim Grigoriev of UC Irvine is The Big West Freshman of the Year.
Thelle is the second Warrior standout to go back-to-back with Big West Player of the Year selections, following former teammate Rado Parapunov in 2020 and 2021. Wade, who shared the 2022 award with UCI’s David Kniffin, joins Rick McLaughlin (2020-21) of UC Santa Barbara and Alan Knipe (2018-19) of Long Beach State both as repeat Big West Coach of the Year honorees, and record two-timers. Grigoriev is UC Irvine’s second Big West Freshman of the Year after Joel Schneidmiller was the inaugural one in 2018.
Thelle tops all of the NCAA Division I-II at a career-best 10.73 assists per set, with 826 dished out over 23 matches played, all starts. The fifth-year senior is third on the team with 28 aces, and tied the program record for career aces at 121 on match point in The Big West semifinals. Thelle averages 1.43 digs, 1.17 points, 0.56 kills and 0.48 blocks per set, while attacking at a .315 (43-15-89) clip. Hawai’i is hitting .373 as a team, second nationally, under the leadership of Thelle, who ranks sixth in the conference in aces per set (0.36) and 18th in digs per set.
Thelle is coming off another tremendous display that netted a second straight Big West Championship Most Valuable Player recognition as the top-seeded Rainbow Warriors defeated third-seeded host UCI in Saturday night’s final, 3-1, in front of 4,064 fans inside the Bren Events Center. The product of Tonsberg, Norway, provided 47 set assists and five block assists after a first double-double for 2023 (fifth career) of 26 assists and a career-high-tying 12 digs in Friday’s semifinals. UH hit .356 for the tourney. Thelle was again the lone setter on the 14-member All-Big West First Team for the second year running.
Wade has directed Hawai’i to a 28-2 overall record in a 14th campaign in charge, with the 28 wins matching the single-season program standard from 2019. The Rainbow Warriors this past Saturday night became The Big West’s first team to lift a third conference tournament trophy, as well as to go back-to-back at that event. They have been No. 1 in the national poll for 16 out of 17 weeks, including unanimously on six occasions. UH went 17-2 on O’ahu and is a perfect 11-0 thus far on the mainland. It has yet to play a single five-setter in 2023.
The Warriors reeled off 16 consecutive victories to begin their season, and head to Virginia as winners of 11 straight. Their only losses have been to fellow National Collegiate Championship participants in No. 3 Penn State on March 10 (3-1) and No. 4 LBSU on March 17 (3-0), both at home. UH, The Big West regular-season co-champion at 9-1, is on to the NCAA postseason for the sixth time in the last eight seasons under Wade, who was the 2019 AVCA National Coach of the Year.
A 6-foot-4 middle blocker, Grigoriev picked up three of the 15 Big West Freshman of the Week awards, all over the second half of the season. The true freshman out of Walnut Creek in Northern California and 2022 graduate of Northgate High School, averaged 1.60 blocks per set over the host and runner-up Anteaters’ three dates at The Big West tourney.
Grigoriev appeared in 19 of 29 matches as the ‘Eaters finished 18-11 on the year, including 6-4 in The Big West to place third. Grigoriev put down a season-high 10 kills on .692 (10-1-13) hitting in a straight-set win at crosstown foe Concordia on Jan. 21, and had eight kills without an error on 11 swings (season-best .727) in another road sweep at UC San Diego on March 11. Grigoriev is fourth in The Big West and first among league rookies with 1.02 blocks per set, having compiled two solo denials and 59 assisted ones over 60 frames. A season-high eight of them (one solo) came in The Big West title tilt against UH. Grigoriev hit an efficient .463 (62-12-108) in a first collegiate go-around.
Thelle, Wade and two-time defending national champion Hawai’i, and Long Beach State (20-4), are in the 2023 National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship field as The Big West’s automatic qualifier and an at-large entrant, respectively.
The Warriors have earned the No. 2 national seed and are straight through to the national semifinals on Thursday, May 4, at 4:30 p.m. PT/1:30 p.m. HT, against the surviving side between No. 3 Penn State, No. 9 Ohio State and King. The Beach are in opening-round action next Tuesday, May 2, at 2 p.m. PT at host George Mason University’s EagleBank Arena in Fairfax, Va., against sixth-ranked fellow at-large qualifier Grand Canyon, with the advancing team taking on second-ranked No. 1 national seed UCLA in the semifinals two days later. The national championship match is slated for a 2 p.m. PT/11 a.m. HT first serve on Saturday, May 6, featuring a national television audience on ESPN2. Hawai’i is vying for a first three-peat since UCLA won four straight national crowns between 1981-84.