Hawaii welcomes long trip to NCAA Tournament in Alabama

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The journey from Southern California to Alabama made for a long day of travel on Monday.

But Evan Silberstein and the University of Hawaii beach volleyball team weren’t complaining about the packed itinerary heading to the site of this week’s NCAA tournament.

“It’s so fun,” Silberstein, UH’s interim head coach, said from the team hotel in Gulf Shores, Ala., on Monday. “I’ve checked myself a few times over the last few days as it has gotten challenging with the logistics and all the little things we deal with, and say this is the exact beautiful, perfect challenge that I love to live in.

“I let the athletes know it’s really meaningful for me personally to be able to lead this group of athletes to Gulf Shores for the first time for almost all of them.”

Just two members of the current Rainbow Wahine roster — juniors Kylin Loker and Sophia Russo — were on the team the last time UH appeared in the National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship in 2019. The 2020 season was cut short and UH missed the tournament for the first time last year.

The BeachBows (24-16) return to Gulf Shores this week as an at-large selection and were slotted as the 13th seed in the expanded 16-team bracket. They’ll face No. 4 seed Loyola Marymount (29-7) in the single-elimination opening round at 6 a.m. on Wednesday. The eight winners advance to the double-elimination bracket running Friday to Sunday.

The Hawaii-LMU winner will face No. 5 Florida State or No. 12 Cal Poly on Friday. Wednesday’s matches will be televised on ESPNU.

UH was awarded one of the at-large berths a few hours after a 3-2 loss to Cal Poly in the final round of the Big West Beach Volleyball Championship in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

The BeachBows took a bus to Los Angeles for an overnight stay on Sunday and shared a charter flight to Mobile, Ala., with USC, UCLA and LMU on Monday. After another bus ride to Gulf Shores, they had a quick break before heading down to the beach for their first practice in Alabama.

“They’re fired up,” Silberstein said. “Everyone’s a little tired, but we’ll settle right in. … It’ll be great to get them to the official practice and out to the official site (today). We’ve got some time to settle before Wednesday and get ourselves tuned in.”

Silberstein said he spent much of the flight to Alabama studying video with his counterpart, LMU coach John Mayer, across the aisle. The teams got an up-close look at each other twice at the Ching Complex in Manoa on April 9 and 10 and split 3-2 decisions.

In all, the BeachBows have faced nine of the other 15 teams in the NCAA field, including the top four of USC, TCU, UCLA and LMU. They went 4-14 against the other NCAA qualifiers with 13 matches decided by 3-2 scores.

UH’s No. 1 flight of Brooke Van Sickle and Kaylee Glagau picked up wins against TCU, UCLA, LMU and LSU on their way to a 30-9 mark and AVCA first-team All-America honors.

Van Sickle and Riley Wagoner will make their debuts in the NCAA beach volleyball tournament after playing in the indoor tournament with the Rainbow Wahine in December.

“They’re very good at knowing how to handle business,” Silberstein said. “Brooke and Riley have helped us a lot with their experience and just the quality of their focus.

“(Van Sickle has) seen just about everything but a national beach volleyball tournament,” Silberstein said. “What’s exciting to me is how exciting it is for her to be here. She loves playing against the best players in the most competitive environments. So for her I think it’s a challenge she’s up for and she’s excited about.”

Loker made the 2019 NCAA all-tournament team and teamed with Jaime Santer to go 3-1 at the No. 2 flight in the Big West tournament last weekend. The No. 3 flight of Sarah Penner and Megan Widener clinched a semifinal win over Long Beach State that likely sealed UH’s spot in the NCAA tournament. Russo and Anna Maidment are 23-15 at No. 4 this season and Riley Wagoner and Ilihia Huddleston are on a 9-1 run at No. 5 entering the tournament.

Loyola Marymount secured its trip to Gulf Shores by sweeping through the West Coast Conference tournament. The Lions didn’t surrender a point in three tournament matches, they swept Santa Clara without dropping a set on Friday and rolled to 5-0 and 3-0 wins over Pepperdine on Saturday.