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Senior night came a night early for Hawaii, with the Rainbow Wahine getting lifts — statistically and emotionally — from all six who are playing their final home volleyball matches this week.
Coming up the biggest in the boxscore was middle Emily Maglio, the Canadian national finishing with 13 kills and five blocks to lead Hawaii to a 25-19, 25-21, 25-12 sweep of Cal State Northridge. A Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 4,119 braved traffic and was rewarded by seeing the Wahine (17-7, 11-2 Big West) hand the Matadors (10-14, 4-8) their seventh consecutive loss.
Hawaii senior libero Savanah Kahakai had a team-high 12 digs and now is 17 away from tying Tita Ahuna (1,384) for third-place on the program’s all-time digs list. While seniors Kendra Koelsch (4 kills, 2 blocks), Gianna Guinasso (5 digs, 2 aces) and Clare-Marie Anderson (2 digs, 8 errorless serves) all contributed, the biggest lift may have come from Kalei Greeley, who served for the second match in the 12 she has played this season and came up with one of Hawaii’s 10 aces.
“I was a little shocked by that,” said Greeley, whose ace made it 20-9 in Set 3. “I liked getting in there to serve.
“Coming off this win … it’s going to be hard to focus Saturday with so much going on. We want to beat Long Beach State. They’ve been our rival.”
Today’s 7 p.m. contest against the 49ers is the final regular-season home match for the Wahine, who finish at UC Davis (14-11, 6-6) on Nov. 16 and at UC Irvine (20-4, 8-3) on Nov. 18.
Hawaii, clinging to hope that a second-place Big West finish will be good enough for an NCAA at-large berth, knows it has no room for error the rest of the way. The “one at a time” begins tonight with The Beach.
“I liked the last set,” Wahine coach Robyn Ah Mow-Santos said. “I wish they’d come out and play like that every game, because we know they can.
“And I thought our middles were pretty awesome tonight. They’ve been working hard with Angelica (assistant Ljungqvist).”
Hawaii, the top blocking team in the Big West, finished tied with CSUN at seven stuffs. The block that excited the fans the most was the solo one by 5-foot-10 sophomore McKenna Ross on the 6-3 Morgan Salone that gave the Wahine the lead at 21-11.
Coming up with a solid night in the middle was sophomore Natasha Burns, putting down six kills on nine swings. Junior hitter McKenna Granato, UH’s kill leader (4.14 cps), finished with just five, hitting .000, but added 11 digs and two aces.
For the Matadors, junior hitter Aeryn Owens had 11 kills and senior libero Katie Sato added a match-high 15 digs. CSUN, which pushed Hawaii to five last month at the Matadome, has not taken a set off the Wahine in Honolulu since 2014.
They came close in Set 2, closing to 23-21. But Koelsch’s kill gave the Wahine set point, and Maglio, showing off her beach skills, dropped the overpass inside the Matadors block for a 2-0 lead.
“Yes, one of my beach shots,” Maglio, an All-American for the SandBows, said. “Every year, I’m just hoping to improve.”
Ah Mow-Santos said it would be awesome for Kahakai to reach No. 3 tonight.
“She’s not one to think about records, but I did say to her before the game, ‘You moving up tonight?’” Ah Mow-Santos said. “She’s a gamer.”
Note
Hawaii has not lost on senior night since 2002, when the Wahine were swept by Stanford, and has not lost its last conference home match since 2007, a straight-sets defeat to Utah State.
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