Cole Reinholm, a 6-foot-4 freshman out of Thousand Oaks High, produced 28 combined kills in three matches in Santa Barbara, including 14 in the Friday opener against Stanford. He hit .545 against the Cardinal.
Stepping in for Paul Spittle (lost to graduation) at outside hitter, Reinholm is hitting an impressive .475 with 40 kills in 59 total attack attempts, spanning four matches.
Jablonsky, an all-tournament performer at UCSB, has 58 kills in 115 attempts (.322), while Webber, another all-tournament honoree who was second-team All-American as a junior last year, has 60 kills in 116 attempts (.310).
With veteran middle blockers David Smith (hitting .500 with 32 kills) and Aaron Harrell (hitting .508 with 32 kills) among the Anteaters' arsenal, senior setter Brian Thornton, a returning All-American who led the nation with 13.7 assists per game last season, is averaging 15.5 thus far.
No. 3-ranked Hawaii has a 26-4 series advantage vs. UCI, some of which was created by the play of Anteaters' assistant coach Mark Presho.
Presho, out of Edison High, was twice an All-American in four seasons at Hawaii, where he amassed 1,582 career kills, No. 2 on the school's all-time list.
The match Friday is at 7 p.m., while Saturday's 7:30 p.m. contest is a doubleheader with the women's basketball team's 4 p.m. Big West Conference clash against Pacific.
They are the first two of nine men's volleyball matches at the 5,000-seat Bren Center this season, an advent long sought by Speraw.
UCI has played the majority of its home matches at Crawford Court, which holds just more than 800.
Speraw, in his fifth season, believes the Bren Center provides a better opportunity to both draw larger crowds and replicate a championship-match atmosphere.
