FAIRFAX, Va. — Top-ranked Big West double champion Hawai’i avoided the reverse sweep and survived to advance past No. 3 Penn State, 3-2, in the late semifinal of the 2023 National Collegiate Men’s Volleyball Championship at EagleBank Arena on Thursday night. Set scores were 25-20, 25-23, 16-25, 23-25 and 15-10.

George Mason University is serving as host of the week-long, seven-team event for the first time in 33 years, since the 1990 edition. The announced attendance was 3,782.

Now a winner of 12 in a row, No. 2 national seed Hawai’i improves to 29-2 overall on the year. The Nittany Lions are the first team to take UH to a fifth set in 2023, while the Rainbow Warriors remain perfect away from home this year at 12-0, including 2-0 in neutral-site dates. Hawai’i is 9-6 over its eight NCAA postseason appearances, including six in the last eight years.

Penn State, also an automatic qualifier as champion of the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA), saw its nine-match win streak snapped and its 2023 season ended at 27-4.

Hawai’i moves on to a third consecutive national championship match, and will face second-ranked No. 1 national seed UCLA (30-2) this Saturday, May 6. First serve is slated for just after 2 p.m. PT/11 a.m. HT, with the contest airing live on ESPN2.

Thursday’s opening set saw the score tied 10 times and the lead changed on three occasions. A 4-0 run gave Penn State a 13-9 advantage, but Hawai’i eventually pulled the score back in its favor at 18-17, and extended that burst to 7-0 for an insurmountable 23-17 cushion.

Hawai’i maintained a slight edge throughout a majority of the second set, and reached the cusp of a commanding 2-0 advantage in sets when repeat Big West Coach of the Year Charlie Wade’s challenge was successful late, with the officials determining there was indeed a touch on a Chaz Galloway attack, changing the score from 22-21 to 23-20. The Nittany Lions tallied the next two points, but then served into the net to give UH a set point. On the Warriors’ second set-point opportunity, another Penn State service error, this one going long, ended the frame.

UH got out to a 4-1 lead in the third set on three Dimitrios Mouchlias kills and a service error before the Nittany Lions rattled off six consecutive points, with three aces and a kill from Brett Wildman, to force a Warrior timeout down 7-4. Penn State was up for the remainder.

Hawai’i was ahead 10-5 in the fourth before surrendering a 9-1 run around a timeout, punctuated by a Cal Fisher ace, to trail 14-11. The Warriors tied it twice at 15-15 and 20-20 before nabbing two final edges of 21-20 and 22-21, but a Fisher kill and an awry Mouchlias attack necessitated UH’s second timeout. Two more Fisher kills around a Wildman service error took the match into a decisive fifth frame.

The fifth set began with Hawai’i notching four of the first five points as Penn State used its first timeout. The run featured two Nittany Lion service mistakes, and an ace and kill from All-American Spyros Chakas. A Mouchlias ace took the teams into the side switch at 8-3 in favor of UH. The squads traded service errors to leave it at 10-6. Fourth-year Warrior middle Guilherme Voss then put down thunderous kills down the center of the court for 11-6 and 13-9, both set up by Jakob Thelle.

Thelle, just named on Wednesday night as the AVCA National Collegiate Men’s Player of the Year, fittingly took end-of-match responsibilities into the fifth-year senior setter’s capable hands. The back-to-back Big West Player of the Year first produced an exquisite set at the net for a Chakas kill to get the Warriors to match point at 14-10. Thelle then swung at a Cole Hogland pass on the second touch rather than setting it, dealing the final kill to turn away Penn State’s comeback hopes.

Mouchlias finished with a match- and season-high 25 kills, eight digs, two blocks and an ace. Thelle had 42 assists, eight digs, two kills and two blocks. Galloway posted a second collegiate double-double of 11 kills and a match- and career-best 12 digs. UH libero Brett Sheward was also in double-digit digs with 10. Chakas collected eight kills, six digs, five set assists and two block assists. Voss hit .667 with six kills and no errors on nine attempts, to go along with six total blocks, two of them solo, to lead all players.

In addition to a team-high 15 kills, Wildman paced all players with seven aces of Penn State’s 12 on the night, though the Nittany Lions had 27 service errors. Fisher and Michal Kowal had 14 and 11 kills, respectively. Setter Cole Bogner wound up with 42 assists, five digs, two kills and a solo block.

On Saturday, either Hawai’i will be the first program to achieve a three-peat since, ironically, UCLA won four straight championships between 1981-84, or, the Bruins will lift the trophy for the first time since 2006.

The Bruins swept Long Beach State in Thursday’s first semifinal for a season-best 11th consecutive victory. The teams met already this season, with Hawai’i taking a 3-1 home decision on the final night of the OUTRIGGER Invitational on March 11 in front of a sold-out crowd of 10,300 spectators, marking the top attendance nationally in 2023.