With a possible first-place showdown in the Big West on tap for Saturday at UC Davis, the Hawaii women’s volleyball team seemed to forget it had to play a match before then.
For the first time in the 34 meetings between UH and UC Riverside, the Highlanders were on the winning end of a 29-27, 17-25, 25-22, 25-27, 15-13 stunner on Thursday night at SRC Arena in Riverside, Calif.
Sophia Ewalefo ended the final rally with her eighth kill to complete one of the biggest upsets in program history.
The Highlanders (9-18, 4-10), who entered the match 10th out of 11 teams in the conference, had lost the last 34 sets to the Rainbow Wahine dating back to 2017.
Eight of the 10 losses in conference play were sweeps, including one in Hawaii in October that lasted 90 minutes.
The Highlanders’ win on Thursday took 2 hours, 42 minutes.
“All I can say is Riverside just played their (butts) off,” Hawaii coach Robyn Ah Mow said in a phone interview. “They came to play. They were doing all of their stuff they needed to do. Everything, touching our balls, balling out on defense, laying out for balls, they did it all.”
Trinity Sheridan had a team-high 19 kills and Jessica Dean had 12 of her match-high-tying 27 digs in the opening set for UCR.
UH junior Caylen Alexander had a match-high 36 kills and hit .317 with a career-high 82 swings. It was the most swings by a UH player in a match since Kim Willoughby had 88 in 2001.
Hawaii led 8-2 in the fifth set after scoring six of the final eight points in the fourth set to force its 10th five-setter of the season. UCR closed the match on a 13-5 run with Ewalefo and Sheridan combining for five kills in the Highlanders’ final six points.
Hawaii (15-8, 9-4 Big West) is 4-5 in road or neutral matches this season and dropped a game back of UC Davis in the conference standings.
UH is tied with three other teams with four conference losses and could possibly be tied for sixth place with a loss Saturday to the Aggies.
Six teams qualify for the Big West Championships Nov. 27-30 in Irvine, Calif.
“There’s nothing we can do now. We have to move past this one and get ready for Saturday,” Ah Mow said. “They kept fighting. We shouldn’t be (in a position) to keep fighting, but we kept fighting.”
Stella Adeyemi hit .345 with 12 kills and Jacyn Bamis added 12 kills out of the middle.
Tayli Ikenaga matched Dean’s match-high 27 digs to move into seventh place on UH’s career list with 1,234, passing Kanoe Kamana’o.
Hawaii fell behind early when Kailyn Jager’s off-speed kill on UCR’s fourth set point ended a marathon opening set.
Dean had 12 digs and Trinity Sheridan had six kills for UCR, which held Alexander without a kill on her first nine swings.
Alexander had five kills in her next eight swings and Adeyemi added four kills in eight swings in the first set but UH couldn’t convert on its only set point when Kate Lang served out coming out of a Highlanders timeout.
Jager served the first three points of the second set for UCR and Dean added an ace to put the Highlanders up 5-1 before Hawaii settled down and took over the match.
UH held the Highlanders to just six kills in the second set and Miliana Sylvester and Adeyemi combined on a double block for UH’s fifth of the match to tie up at one set apiece.
Hawaii hit .359 in the fourth set and gave up two of UCR’s 10 aces consecutively in the fifth set on back-to-back serve-receive errors.
UH had more attack errors (24), service errors (14) and block errors (six) in the match.
BIG WEST WOMEN
Conference Overall
W L Pct. GB W L
UC Davis 10 3 .769 — 15 7
Hawaii 9 4 .692 1 15 8
Cal Poly 8 4 .667 1½ 15 8
UC Irvine 8 4 .667 1½ 14 9
UC San Diego 8 4 .667 1½ 14 9
Long Beach St. 7 5 .583 2½ 13 9
UCSB 6 6 .500 3½ 10 14
CSU Bakersfield 5 7 .417 4½ 11 13
UC Riverside 4 10 .286 6½ 8 18
CS Northridge 3 9 .250 6½ 8 15
CS Fullerton 0 12 .000 9½ 4 18
Thursday
UC Riverside def. Hawaii 29-27, 17-25,
25-22, 25-27, 15-13
Friday
Cal State Bakersfield at Cal Poly
Long Beach State at Cal State Fullerton
UC San Diego at UC Irvine
Cal State Northridge at UC Santa Barbara
Saturday
Hawaii at UC Davis, noon
Long Beach State at UC Irvine
UC San Diego at Cal State Fullerton
Cal State Bakersfield at UC Santa Barbara
Cal State Northridge at Cal Poly
UC RIVERSIDE DEF. HAWAII
29-27, 17-25, 25-22, 25-27, 15-13
RAINBOW WAHINE (15-8, 9-4)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Lang 5 2 1 12 .083 9 3 4.5
Bamis 512 5 28 .250 9 3 16.5
Ikenaga 5 0 1 1-1.000 27 0 0.0
Alexander 536 9 85 .318 14 0 37.0
Adeyemi 512 2 29 .345 3 1 12.5
Hakas 5 9 3 28 .214 14 3 12.5
Leyva 5 0 0 0 .000 19 0 0.0
Sylvester 5 5 3 14 .143 3 4 7.0
Mane 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Arquette 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
MATCH 5 76 24 197 .264 98 14 90.0
HIGHLANDERS (9-18, 4-10)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Ewalefo 5 8 1 23 .304 8 2 11.0
Dean 5 0 0 0 .000 27 0 2.0
Sheridan 519 6 53 .245 6 0 22.0
Rowe 5 7 2 16 .313 0 1 9.5
Silva 5 2 1 8 .125 15 0 5.0
Jager 512 4 38 .211 23 2 14.0
Hooks 5 2 2 6 .000 2 4 4.0
Chase 4 0 0 0 .000 4 0 0.0
Brewer 4 6 1 14 .357 1 0 6.0
Neal 3 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Delahoussy. 3 6 4 31 .065 4 1 6.5
Nguyen 2 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Wiedenheft 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
MATCH 5 62 21 189 .217 90 10 80.0
Service aces — Hawaii 6 (Bamis 2, Hakas,
Alexander, Lang). UC Riverside 10 (Silva 3,
Dean 2, Ewalefo 2, Jager, Rowe, Sheridan).
Service errors — Hawaii 14 (Alexander 6,
Lang 4, Bamis 2, Ikenaga, Leyva). UC Riverside 11 (Jager 3, Dean 2, Silva 2, Ewalefo,
Neal, Rowe, Sheridan). Assists — Hawaii
73 (Lang 59, Ikenaga 8, Alexander 4,
Bamis, Leyva). UC Riverside 56 (Silva 36,
Chase 9, Dean 8, Brewer, Delahoussaye,
Jager). Block solos — Hawaii 1 (Bamis).
UC Riverside 3 (Sheridan 2, Rowe). Ball
handling errors — Hawaii none. UC Riverside none. Reception errors — Hawaii 10
(Adeyemi 3, Alexander 2, Hakas 2, Ikenaga,
Leyva, Team). UC Riverside 6 (Ewalefo 3,
Jager 2, Delahoussaye). T—2:42. A—350.
Officials—Patrick Bradley, Deanna
Schneyer, Kapua Nakasone, Niloofar Mojab.
