With only seeding left to play for, the Hawaii women’s volleyball team couldn’t overcome a desperate UC Irvine team fighting to keep its season alive.
The Rainbow Wahine hit .169, their lowest in conference matches this season, and the Anteaters completed a regular-season sweep of Hawaii with a 25-19, 15-25, 25-18, 25-19 victory on Saturday at the Bren Events Center in Irvine, Calif.
Caylen Alexander had a match-high 19 kills for Hawaii, which will return to the same arena to play Friday in the Outrigger Big West Women’s Volleyball Championship as the No. 2 seed.
Hawaii finished the regular season 19-9 overall and 13-5 in conference play, tied for second with UC Davis, which lost to regular-season champion Cal Poly in five sets on Saturday.
UH holds the tiebreaker over the Aggies due to its regular-season sweep of Cal Poly, which finished 14-4, and will play in Friday’s second semifinal at 4 p.m.
“It is what it is. Marinate this stuff in your head and get over it, because there is no time to get down,” Hawaii coach Robyn Ah Mow said. “Even for the coaches as well. We’ve got to figure out how to fix when we’re spiraling downwards getting back into it. The girls have got to look at each other and figure it out and pick things up.”
The Rainbow Wahine had won eight of their past nine matches before losing for the second time to the Anteaters (16-13, 10-8), who needed a win and a UC Santa Barbara loss to get into the tournament as the No. 6 seed.
UC Irvine, which is the only team to beat Hawaii twice this season, could be Hawaii’s opponent in the semifinals with a win over UC Davis in Wednesday’s first round.
The Anteaters had beaten Hawaii only once in 47 meetings before this season.
Jacyn Bamis was the only other UH player in double figures in kills with 10 on Saturday but committed six of Hawaii’s 25 hitting errors.
Alexander had eight hitting errors, including five in the fourth set, and Stella Adeyemi had four kills and hit negative before she was subbed out of the match for freshman Adrianna Arquette late in the third set.
Hawaii also had 12 service errors, five reception errors and four block errors.
“Undisciplined. Just undisciplined,” Ah Mow said. “I think we had 17 errors in one set and at one point they had 14 points and we had given them more than half of those points. Pin to pin we were not disciplined. Assignments on what they were blocking, undisciplined.”
Tali Hakas hit .179 with seven kills and a team-high 15 digs to lead four Rainbow Wahine in double figures.
UH led 11-7 in the first set before the Anteaters closed it out on an 18-8 run.
Hawaii jumped out to an 11-3 lead in the second set and ran away with it hitting .323. UH hit .200 in the third set and .132 in the fourth set as the Anteaters kept Hawaii under 20 points in all three sets they won.
Freshman middle blocker Miliana Sylvester had six kills and was in on five of Hawaii’s eight blocks. UC Irvine had 11 blocks and won despite hitting only .190 as a team.
“We knew they were going to be fighting because they needed to win this game against us,” Ah Mow said. “We told the girls. We beat them and they are out. They definitely fought for that and we got beat with them setting high balls outside.”
Hawaii will fly home today before heading back to Southern California on Tuesday.
