Thursday, November 20, 2014

NAMPA, Idaho - Shih Ting Chen has been voted the Daktronics West Region Player of the Year in each of the past two seasons. 

She showed why Thursday night leading BYU-Hawaii to a 3-1 win over Central Washington in the third quarterfinal game of the NCAA West Regionals at the Johnson Sports Center.

Chen had a match-high 27 kills and four blocks as the Seasiders, the tournament's No. 5 seed and the No. 9 ranked team in the lastest AVCA national rankings, defeated Central Washington, the fourth seed, 19-25, 25-17, 25-17, 25-19, to advance to Friday's 7:30 p.m. semifinals.

BYU-Hawaii, which is the defending regional champion, will play the winner of tonight's final game between top-seed Northwest Nazarene and eighth-seed Dixie State.

CWU won the first set holding BYUH to a .087 percentage, but couldn't stop the PacWest champions after that as they hit .417 over the final three sets.

In addition to Chen, BYU-Hawaii was led by Noel Pauga Wolman with 18 kills and Erh Fang Hsu with 13.  Kalistina Takau participated in seven of BYUH's eight blocks.

Linden Firethorne paced the Wildcats with 14 kills and Jordan Deming had 10.  No one else, however, had more than five kills.

Deming also had six blocks, including the matches' only two solos by either team.  Kaely Kight led the Wildcat defense with 18 digs.

BYU-Hawaii will take a 22-5 record into Friday's semifinals.  Central Washington wrapped up its season with a 19-8 record.