UH finishes third in the NCAA beach volleyball championship

Another year, another step forward.

After placing fourth in the inaugural National Collegiate Beach Volleyball Championship last year, the University of Hawaii beach volleyball team was among the last three teams standing entering the final day of the season.

A spirited run ended Sunday with a 3-0 semifinal loss to Pepperdine, leaving the Rainbow Wahine one spot ahead of last year’s finish and one shy of their goal for their last day in Gulf Shores, Ala.

“Initially you’re super bummed and it’s a sad moment,” UH coach Jeff Hall said in a phone interview. “But I turned the page pretty quickly and went back to my hotel and started reflecting and it’s like, ‘what a great season.’ We’ve gotten one step closer than we did last year and made it to Sunday, which is championship day, which is great.”

The fifth-seeded SandBows closed the season at 29-7 with a second straight Big West title and a third-place finish in the national tournament.

Third-seeded Pepperdine advanced to face No. 1 USC in the final. USC retained the title with three-set wins in the final two matches in a 3-2 victory.

Hall said he watched the championship match in his hotel room envisioning Hawaii in that spot a year from now.

“That’s what we’re going for, that’s our goal,” he said. “We have the talent, we have all the support to get to that point. There has to be the clear focus every day next year that we want to be in the national championship game.”

Hall can devote his attention to that end as he enters his first offseason as UH’s full-time beach volleyball coach. He’d performed double duty as associate coach with the indoor program and the beach head coach the past three years.

“We’ve had a lot of great development with these kids. I think the program has evolved quite a bit,” Hall said. “Now we can put all of our efforts into what it’s going to take for us to win a championship and make it one more round next year.”

A day after UH survived an emotional dual with Florida State, Pepperdine — which won two of three meetings with UH in the regular season — claimed the first set on four of the five courts in Sunday’s dual.

Pepperdine’s Delaney Knudsen and Madalyn Roh closed out a sweep on Court 1 as did Corinne Quiggle and Brittany Howard on Court 2 to give the Waves a commanding 2-0 lead in the best-of-five format.

The Waves had their first swing for the dual on Court 5 at 20-19 in the second set. But UH’s Hannah Zalopany and Amy Ozee rallied to win the set 23-21 to force a third and keep the SandBows alive for the moment.

On Court 3, UH’s Emily Maglio and Laurel Weaver also forced a third set after losing the first.

But the dual was soon decided on Court 4, where Pepperdine’s Anika Wilson and Deahna Kraft dropped the first set to UH’s Carly Kan and Ari Homayun 21-9 but fought back to take the second 21-15. The Waves broke out to a 9-5 lead in the third set and clinched the dual with a 15-9 victory.

“(The Waves) were ready to go, they were clearly better than us,” Hall said. “It was their day and we just couldn’t quite get ourselves going, we didn’t get any momentum. We never played from ahead, so that’s a really hard position when you’re always trying to catch up.

“Pepperdine had a great day, they almost won the national championship. They were two points away.”

Zalopany and Ozee were named to the all-tournament team in the No. 5 flight a day after providing the decisive point in UH’s win over Florida State with a 21-17, 18-21, 27-25 win.

UH seniors Nikki Taylor and Mikayla Tucker closed their college careers on Sunday as two of the most successful players in the program’s history.

Taylor returned from an ankle injury suffered in the final match of UH’s indoor season to go 26-9 with junior Kaiwi Schucht on the beach. Tucker teamed with freshman Morgan Martin to earn Big West pairs team of the year honors. Taylor holds the program record with 105 wins with Tucker third at 80.

“It is the cycle of athletics. They’re hard to replace and they had a wonderful career and left a legacy for the kids coming behind them,” Hall said.

NATIONAL COLLEGIATE BEACH VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

At Gulf Shores, Ala.

Friday

Match 1: No. 1 USC def. No. 8 South Carolina, 3-0

Match 2: No. 5 Hawaii def. No. 4 Florida State, 3-1

Match 3: No. 2 UCLA def. No. 7 LSU, 3-0

Match 4: No. 3 Pepperdine def. No. 6 Long Beach State, 3-0

Match 5: Florida State def. South Carolina, 3-0 (South Carolina eliminated)

Match 6: LSU def. Long Beach State, 3-2 (LBSU eliminated)

Match 7: USC def. Hawaii, 3-0

Match 8: Pepperdine def. UCLA, 3-1

Saturday

Match 9: Florida State def. UCLA 3-1 (UCLA eliminated)

Match 10: Hawaii def. LSU 3-0 (LSU eliminated)

Match 11: USC def. Pepperdine 3-0

Match 12: Hawaii def. Florida State 3-2 (FSU eliminated)

Sunday

Match 13: Pepperdine def. Hawaii 3-0 (Hawaii eliminated)

Championship: USC def. Pepperdine 3-2

No. 3 Pepperdine def. No. 5 Hawaii 3-0

Court 1: Delaney Knudsen-Madalyn Roh (Pepperdine) def. Mikayla Tucker- Morgan Martin (UH) 21-18, 21-15.

Court 2: Corinne Quiggle-Brittany Howard (Pepperdine) def. Nikki Taylor-Kaiwi Schucht (UH), 21-17, 21-15.

Court 3: Laurel Weaver-Emily Maglio (UH) vs. Skylar Caputo-Heidi Dyer (Pepperdine), 18-21, 21-19, DNF.

Court 4: Anika Wilson-Deahna Kraft (Pepperdine) def. Carly Kan-Ari Homayun (UH), 9-21, 21-15, 15-9.

Court 5: Amy Ozee-Hannah Zalopany (UH) vs. Sarah Seiber-Nikki Lyons (Pepperdine), 12-21, 23-21, 4-4 DNF.