Amber Igiede admittedly doesn’t enjoy flying.

That fact makes playing in Hawaii perhaps a curious choice considering the Rainbow Wahine volleyball team takes a round trip over the Pacific every other week in the conference season.

“The turbulence really scares me,” Igiede told media members prior to the team’s departure to Stanford, Calif., for the NCAA Tournament. “Everyone always laughs at me for that.”

Yet over the course of the 10-week Big West schedule, no player in the conference soared higher than the Rainbow Wahine middle blocker.

Igiede paired elevated production with record-pace efficiency in her junior season and was named the Big West player of the year on Wednesday.

“I think she’s a one in a million player,” UH coach Robyn Ah Mow said. “She grew each year, she just wanted to be better.

“Obviously, everybody knows in conference, and here in the state, what she means to the program and the team.”

UH claimed four of the Big West’s five major awards with Ah Mow named Big West coach of the year for the third time, outside hitter Caylen Alexander earning the freshman of the year award and sophomore Kate Lang winning the inaugural setter of the year honor.

Igiede made the All-Big West first team for the third time and was joined by Lang and junior outside hitter Riley Wagoner.

Alexander was selected to the second team and also made the all-freshman team.

Igiede’s kill numbers have increased in each of her three seasons at UH, rising to 3.79 per set as a junior. Her hitting percentage has followed a similar ascent, rising to .439 this season. She enters Friday’s NCAA Tournament match against LSU ranked fourth in the country in the category and in position to surpass a former mentor for the school record.

Angelica Ljungqvist set the current UH mark of .417 in 1996 and the former Wahine All-American returned as an assistant coach when Ah Mow took over the program in 2017.

They convinced Igiede to overcome her aversion to air travel to leave Louisiana to pursue collegiate volleyball in Hawaii and Ljungqvist’s influence early in her career helped put her on a track to this season’s record-pace performance.

“That’s crazy because I respect Coach Anj so much,” Igiede said of Ljungqvist, who returned to Sweden prior to the 2021 season. “It’s crazy to even be in that conversation with her. I love Coach Anj so much because she’s one of the huge reasons I’m here.”

Igiede led the conference with 4.90 points per set and UH claimed the Big West player of the year award for the seventh time in 10 seasons since re-joining the conference in 2012 and for the third consecutive season, following Norene Iosia in 2019 and Brooke Van Sickle last year.

Her kill totals rose from 214 as a freshman to 316 last year and again to 390 through 28 matches this season. Her 68 hitting errors this fall matches her total last year despite taking nearly 100 more swings. In Big West matches, Igiede’s hitting percentage rose to .450 with 3.97 kills per set.

Igiede hit over .600 in three matches and was named the Big West offensive player of the week twice this season. She was also the only non-libero/defensive specialist to win the defensive player of the week award. She also scored from the service line with 29 aces, good for second on the team.

Ah Mow was voted coach of the year after leading the Wahine to a third straight Big West title. She shared the award in 2019 and was the sole recipient for the last two seasons.

The Wahine started 2-5 against a challenging nonconference schedule following a four-set loss to Southern California on Sept. 9. They pulled off a reverse sweep of the Trojans a night later and lost just once more on the way to the Big West title and enter the NCAA Tournament with a 12-match winning streak.

“She’s done a great job, and the coaching staff, always keeping us grounded and always helping us grind it out,” Igiede said.

“It gets hard practicing and our bodies are sore, but she just says at the end of the day you’re an athlete and you just have to push hard. That’s what champions do at the end. … (Winning) it’s not going to be easy, so I think she really gives us that winning mindset.”

Alexander gave the Wahine their second freshman of the year award in the last three seasons. She won the Big West freshman of the week award six times, including a run of three in a row in October, to break the UH record of five set by Hanna Hellvig, the conference’s top freshman in 2019.

Alexander enters her first NCAA Tournament averaging 2.75 kills per set and with a team-high 33 service aces.

Lang set UH to a league-high .292 team hitting percentage in Big West matches and her 10.78 assists per set led the conference. She posted eight double-doubles (assists and digs), including a 55-assist, 17-dig performance to go along with a career-high six kills in last week’s five-set win at UC Santa Barbara that clinched the Big West title.

Wagoner, one of four Rainbow Wahine to play in every set this season, was second on the team averaging 3.44 kills per set during conference matches.