Trojans top SandBows for Outrigger title

All season long, top-ranked USC has brought its “A” game.

On Saturday, the “A” stood for “Anna.”

The Women of Troy were focused not just on winning the 2nd Outrigger Resorts Aloha Invitational but on giving their beach volleyball coach Anna Collier her 100th career victory. USC did so in sweeping fashion, defeating No. 5 Hawaii 3-0 for the championship at wind-and-rain-battered Queen’s Beach.

The Women of Troy (26-2) extended their winning streak to 22, clinching the title at Flight 1 when All-Americans Sara Hughes and Kelly Claes moved to 36-0 for the year with a 21-14, 21-14 victory over the Rainbow Wahine’s Katie Spieler and Emily Maglio.

“It was great to win the tournament; it was an amazing tournament, but today was all about Anna,” Hughes said after she and Claes won their 61st consecutive match. “She has given us so much and we wanted this for her.”

The split final saw USC take a 2-0 lead with wins at Flights 2 and 3 … but it wasn’t easy. Hawaii (13-8) was poised to even the match when No. 2 Nikki Taylor and Ka’iwi Schucht forced a third set against Sophie Bukovec and Alexa Strange.

Bukovec-Strange took a commanding 11-4 lead in Set 3 when Taylor went off, the All-American junior coming up with three aces, two kills and a block of Strange to pull UH to 11-10. It wouldn’t be enough, with USC using a 4-1 run, including a ace by Bukovec, for the win.

More impressive than Taylor’s showing was that of Claes in Flight 1 at the end of Set 1. After Katie Spieler’s kill gave UH a 14-13 lead, Hughes tied it with a kill, sending Claes to the service line.

When Claes was done, so was the set, with her three aces highlighting the 8-0 closing run. Claes added two more in Set 2, both landing just inside the line, and Hughes’ final kill clinched the dual with USC’s No. 4 and 5 pairs racing from their unfinished matches to join the celebration on Court 1 as Hawaii watched it on the large video screen.

“To see them run out on the JumboTron makes you want to win the next one with them,” said Wahine Hannah Rooks, who, with partner Ari Homayun, was leading her No. 5 match against USC. “We fought really hard the first set (winning 21-19). We had lost to them earlier today (21-18, 21-12 in bracket play), so I’m happy how we gave it our hearts this time.

“But I take this with a grain of salt. This is three times that they’ve beaten us on this beach. I’ll hold onto that as motivation, fight through the Big West (tournament) and fight to get to Alabama (site of the NCAA tournament) just to see them again.”

Hawaii and USC are favored to win their respective conference tournaments next week and, along with them automatic bids in the inaugural NCAA tournament May 6-8, in Gulf Shores, Ala. The Big West and NCAA format will mimic that of the Aloha Invitational in that play halts once a team has earned the clinching point.

“It was a little anti-climatic today with two teams still playing, and our girls were a little bummed, but as I told them this is how the national championship will be,” Hawaii coach Jeff Hall said. “I told them to use it as fuel for the fire, if you want to be angry, then use it as motivation.

“USC is so good, they have so many weapons, they can sideout and they can score by serving. That (Flight 1) match … we were in a nice position, feeling pretty good, and then (Claes) had that serving run. It changed everything.”