WACO, TEXAS >> The Hawaii women’s volleyball team left the island for its first road trip knowing it was fortunate to have a 6-1 record.
They return home a week later feeling like they are a lot better than its now 6-4 record after three straight losses away from SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
Inside of the Farrell Center, which the Stan Sheriff Center was modeled after when it was built and completed in 1994, the Rainbow Wahine struggled from the service line and again couldn’t win the key points of sets in a 25-14, 21-25, 25-14, 25-17 loss to No. 20 Baylor on Saturday night.
Caylen Alexander had a match-high 18 kills and 10 digs for her eighth double-double this season, but got little help from the other pin hitters, who combined to hit less than .100 with 11 kills and eight errors.
Hawaii coach Robyn Ah Mow, who said after Friday’s four-set loss at No. 8 Texas that her team had to win the points when it got the other team out of system, only grew more frustrated as again, Hawaii put itself in that position but couldn’t come through.
“We would have some spurts and then missed serves,” Ah Mow said. “That definitely changes stuff. When you have a good rally and then you go back to serve and, boom, done. There goes all of the energy. I don’t know what happened to our serving.”
Hawaii had 12 service errors for the second consecutive match after committing eight or fewer in the previous six in which five went five sets.
The Rainbow Wahine still haven’t played a three-set match this season after winning the second set against both ranked teams they played in the state of Texas.
Nonetheless, this loss to the Bears (8-3) stung a little more than the one to the Longhorns on Friday.
“We’re very upset at the loss. We made a lot of errors and every single team we’ve played this week on the road we feel like we’ve beat ourselves,” freshman middle blocker Miliana Sylvester said. “We needed these wins for opportunities in the postseason, but we’re looking forward to get back in the gym and really working because we’re tired of feeling this frustration.”
The differential at the service line was made worse by Baylor’s nine aces, which were the second-most Hawaii has given up this season behind the 10 made by UNLV to start the road trip on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
Hawaii had two of its five best hitting percentage performances against Texas and Baylor and committed its fewest and second-fewest amount of errors in a match against the two toughest teams it has played.
Serve receiving was again an issue, but when Hawaii passed the ball and got into a flow offensively, it had success.
Hawaii hit .515 with 17 kills and no errors in the second set.
“We’ve just got to be all together,” Ah Mow said. “We’re just not unified. It looks like one player is here, one player is there. If we get all together, then yeah, maybe.”
Hawaii was outblocked nine to two after it doubled up the Longhorns in blocks.
UH did get production offensively from its middles as Sylvester finished with 10 kills and hit .350 while Jacyn Bamis had nine kills and hit .389.
“Feeling like we are right there is one of the positives, but that also is one of our biggest frustrations because we are beating ourselves,” Sylvester said. “Being able to get back into the practice gym and figuring out how to minimize our errors, get better touches on the blocks and serving tough. We want to get to be doing that.”
Hawaii setter Kate Lang finished with 35 assists and 11 digs for her 40th career double-double and libero Tayli Ikenaga had 10 digs to give her double figures in nine of 10 matches.
Baylor outdug Hawaii 51-43 with libero Lauren Briseno finishing with a match-high 14.
Elise McGhee led the Bears with 16 kills and had seven in the third set in which Baylor hit .467 to reclaim the lead after Hawaii had won the second.
The Bears have won three in a row against UH with the first being a reverse sweep in five sets in the NCAA Tournament in 2018.
Hawaii will have to regroup to get ready for the start of the Big West season on Friday against UC Irvine at home.
UH hasn’t lost four consecutive matches in a season since November 1985.
NO. 20 BAYLOR DEF. HAWAII
25-14, 21-25, 25-14, 25-17
RAINBOW WAHINE (6-4)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Alexander 418 5 43 .302 10 0 20.0
Sylvester 410 3 20 .350 0 1 10.5
Bamis 4 9 2 18 .389 1 1 9.5
Hakas 4 7 3 24 .167 8 1 7.5
Adeyemi 4 4 5 24 -.042 3 0 4.0
Lang 4 3 0 10 .300 11 1 3.5
Ikenaga 4 0 1 2 -.500 10 0 0.0
Matias 4 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Leyva 4 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
Arquette 3 1 0 1 1.000 0 0 1.0
Mane 2 0 0 1 .000 0 0 0.0
MATCH 4 52 19 143 .231 43 4 56.0
BEARS (8-3)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Barrett Frazier4 2 0 8 .250 12 1 3.5
Briseno 4 0 0 3 .000 14 0 0.0
Andrew 4 9 0 16 .563 3 0 9.0
McGhee 416 3 30 .433 2 2 19.0
Keene 4 0 0 0 .000 3 0 0.0
Sczech 4 4 1 15 .200 2 1 5.5
Murphy 413 3 24 .417 5 1 16.5
Ulufatu 4 0 0 0 .000 8 0 1.0
Bibinbe 4 5 1 13 .308 2 5 12.5
Kreck 1 0 0 0 .000 0 0 0.0
MATCH 4 49 8 109 .376 51 10 67.0
Key — s: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors;
att: attempts; pct: hitting percentage; d:
digs; ba: block assists; pts: points (kills
plus blocks plus aces).
Service aces — Hawaii 2 (Alexander 2).
Baylor 9 (Murphy 3, McGhee 2, Bibinbe 2,
Barrett Frazier, Ulufatu). Service errors —
Hawaii 12 (Matias 3, Alexander 2, Bamis 2,
Hakas 2, Lang, Ikenaga, Arquette).
Baylor 6 (McGhee 4, Barrett Frazier 2).
Assists — Hawaii 42 (Lang 35, Ikenaga 5,
Alexander, Bamis). Baylor 44 (Barrett Frazier 37, Murphy 3, Briseno 2, Bibinbe, Andrew). Block solos — Hawaii none.
Baylor 4 (Bibinbe 3, Sczech). Ball handling errors — Hawaii none. Baylor none.
Reception errors — Hawaii 9 (Hakas 3,
Adeyemi 2, Team 2, Alexander, Leyva).
Baylor 2 (Keene 2). T—2:03. A—957. Officials—Thang Nguyen, Carlos Tamez, Gerardo Dominguez Diaz, Tom Walkoviak.
