LOS ANGELES >> Charlie Wade didn\u2019t have to go deep into the contacts list on his phone to find the right person to call for a place to practice Thursday.<\/p>\n
Hawaii\u2019s men\u2019s volleyball coach reached out to Mira Costa athletic director Mike Rosenthal, who just happens to be the father of Hawaii setter Tread Rosenthal, a finalist for the AVCA National Player of the Year award.<\/p>\n
After getting to their hotel very early Thursday morning, the team took it easy before making a 13-mile drive south. It took nearly 85 minutes in Los Angeles\u2019 late afternoon traffic to get to Mira Costa High School for practice. That\u2019s where both Tread Rosenthal and freshman outside hitter Thatcher Fahlbusch finished their high school careers.<\/p>\n
\u201cLindsay (Tread\u2019s mom) was reaching out about doing a meal for the (team), so we just kind of combined the two together,\u201d Wade said after practice. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful facility and Tread gets a chance to come home and hang out for a bit and get a meal to boot.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rainbow Warriors practiced for approximately 90 minutes ahead of Saturday\u2019s NCAA Tournament semifinal against Big West rival Long Beach State at Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus.<\/p>\n
Ball State and UC Irvine will play in the first semifinal at 12:30 before the \u2018Bows and Beach battle to determine the second team to advance to Monday\u2019s national championship.<\/p>\n
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Both of Rosenthal\u2019s parents watched some of practice and were there at the end to pick up volleyballs and then feed the team.<\/p>\n
Mike, who played offensive line in the NFL from 1999 to 2007, felt it was important to do more than just let the team practice at the high school.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously so cool to have (Tread) back here and the team here,\u201d Mike Rosenthal said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve got to get them fed. An offensive lineman knows the most important thing is to make sure they get fed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Rosenthal became the athletic director at Mira Costa in 2022 after moving from Austin, Texas, late in 2021.<\/p>\n
Tread and Mike initially made the move together before Lindsay and Tread\u2019s three sisters joined them the following summer, prior to the next school year.<\/p>\n
Tread Rosenthal played two seasons of high school volleyball before skipping his entire senior year to enroll early in 2023 at UH, which needed a setter to replace Jakob Thelle.<\/p>\n
Was it tough to leave the family early?<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. I don\u2019t like him,\u201d Rosenthal said laughing about his father. \u201cI\u2019m joking of course. Yeah, we all had our goodbyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
On living alone with his dad in California: \u201cMy sisters were back in Texas (in 2022) finishing the semester and they had volleyball and stuff and (we) had six months together just figuring out California. It was really fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mike Rosenthal did not have a chance to see Tread play a match in Hawaii this season.<\/p>\n
He and his wife have a Google spreadsheet of all of the events involving Tread and his three sisters, including Tanon, who plays beach volleyball at Loyola Marymount, and Lerin, who is a junior at Mira Costa and has committed to Florida State for beach volleyball.<\/p>\n
Mike said he and Lindsay have what equates to a fantasy sports draft to decide which parent gets to choose which event to travel to if available.<\/p>\n
Lindsay\u2019s first pick was to see Tread play in the Outrigger Invitational in Hawaii.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually I go out (to Hawaii) twice a year, but we have a daughter playing at LMU and a daughter playing here and we kind of divide and conquer,\u201d Mike said. \u201cI think we were both sitting there in Gulf Shoes (Alabama, NCAA Beach Volleyball Championships with LMU) last Saturday night thinking we wanted to be (in Hawaii), but yeah, as crazy as it is, we do a Google doc at the beginning of the year and (Lindsay) always gets the first pick.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rosenthal\u2019s family has hosted current UH teammates Adrien Roure and Finn Kearney, who Rosenthal has known since he was 15, in the past.<\/p>\n
They would come down to the school to work out and play open gym when available.<\/p>\n
Tread Rosenthal, was has also played for the United States\u2019 U19 and U21 teams, has devoted his life to the sport once he chose to make it a full-time commitment.<\/p>\n
He said there is also nothing quite like playing at the high school level with your best friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you know you\u2019re with your boys, you play club with them every day, you see them every day, you go play at the beach every day, and it really is hard to go replace those guys because you\u2019re around those guys,\u201d Rosenthal said. \u201cI definitely miss it a lot and high school ball is definitely more cultured and more fun and energy toward it. I miss it a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fahlbusch, who helped Mira Costa win the inaugural CIF Division I state championship as a senior, spent two years at Loyola High before moving to Mira Costa.<\/p>\n
He was twice named to VolleyballMag\u2019s Fab 50 and made the AVCA high school All-America second team as a senior before coming to UH.<\/p>\n
\u201cI barely missed (Tread),\u201d Fahulbusch said. \u201cI had transferred after my sophomore year and that\u2019s when he left, so I just missed him. It\u2019s pretty full circle coming back to kind of what it\u2019s started, so this has been cool for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the memories came back during practice, the focus remains ahead on UH claiming its third national championship this decade.<\/p>\n
Hawaii is 2-1 against the Beach this season, with the loss coming in five sets in the Big West Tournament final after UH had five match points to end it in the fourth set. UH beat Long Beach State twice in the Pyramid, including a sweep.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know what we\u2019re up against. We played them three times this year,\u201d Tread Rosenthal said.<\/p>\n
NATIONAL COLLEGIATE MEN\u2019S VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP <\/p>\n
At Pauley Pavilion, Los Angeles <\/p>\n
Saturday<\/p>\n
>> UC Irvine (20-8) vs. No. 4 Ball State (26-4), 12:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
>> No. 2 seed Hawaii (28-5) vs. No. 3 seed Long Beach State (25-4), 3:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
Monday<\/p>\n
>> Championship, 1 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
>> TV: ESPN2 (Championship only)<\/p>\n
>> Streaming: ESPN+ (Semifinals)<\/p>\n
>> Radio: 1500-AM \/ 92.7-FM (Hawaii matches only)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES >> Charlie Wade didn\u2019t have to go deep into the contacts list on his phone to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[14596,131,133,132],"class_list":["post-305873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-editors","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}