There are “good” and “bad” sides to beach volleyball courts, with the better side usually wind aided. The gusty conditions at Gulf Shore, Ala., on Friday mirrored that of fifth-seeded Hawaii’s results at the inaugural NCAA championship.
The Rainbow Wahine opened with a 3-0 win over fourth-seeded UCLA in the first round but couldn’t replicate the upset when facing top-seeded Florida State in the winners bracket semifinal. The Seminoles (31-1) avenged their only defeat of the season — that coming to Hawaii in March — by rallying past the SandBows 3-2, a match touched with a little controversy.
Hawaii (17-9) will face sixth-seeded Arizona (20-6) in an elimination match today at 8 a.m. The Wildcats survived a loser-out match with Georgia State 3-2, with the deciding point coming at the No. 4 flight on an ace by Kalei Mau (Kaiser High) in a 22-20, 17-21, 15-12 victory over the Panthers.
Hawaii had a 2-0 lead against FSU after wins by Ginger Long and Mikayla Tucker at No. 3, 23-21, 21-19, and by Hannah Rooks and Ari Homayun at No. 5, 22-20, 21-16. But the match was tied some five minutes later following losses by Nikki Taylor-Ka’iwi Schucht at No. 2, 21-15, 21-16, and Lara Schreiber-Hannah Zalopany at No. 4, 21-16, 21-12.
It came down to Court 1, where two late serving errors helped Jace Pardon and Julie Brown come back for a 14-21, 21-16, 16-14 victory over Katie Speiler-Emily Maglio that ran their season record to 28-3.
The controversy began before the UH-FSU match when Hawaii wanted to move Taylor-Schucht to No. 1 and Spieler-Maglio to No. 2. That was the lineup card that coach Jeff Hall submitted, but a protest was filed by another team in the field and Hawaii lost when the on-site officials agreed with the protest, which was based on Spieler-Maglio having played more matches at No. 1 (14) than Taylor-Schucht (0) during the season.
In the 4-1 win over the Seminoles in March, Taylor played at No. 1 with Lara Schreiber and lost 3-2 to Pardon-Brown. Spieler-Maglio won their match at No. 2 2-0.
“When we practiced (Thursday), we had the 1 and 2 play each other and Nikki and Ka’iwi beat Katie and Emily,” Hall said in a phone interview. “We were going to go with the switch (against FSU), but unfortunately the NCAA sided with the protest.
“So although Arizona does have a switch because of injury, we will not. We will be what we are.”
And late Friday that was being on the verge of upsetting the top seed.
“Up 2-0 is right where you want to be, but we just didn’t execute down the stretch and we kind of gave it to them,” Hall said. “We just weren’t good enough today.
“It’s tough any time you have to go through the contenders bracket. Arizona is a good team, riding the wave of their success at the Pac-12 tournament, but I like our matchup.”
Should the SandBows get past the Pac-12 runners-up, Hawaii will face the winner of the Pepperdine-UCLA elimination match. The Waves (20-4) dropped into the contenders bracket after a 3-0 loss to second-seeded USC (31-2) and the Bruins (20-7), swept by the SandBows 3-0 in Friday’s opener, held on to eliminate Stetson 3-2 Friday afternoon.
The win over UCLA was the first in three meetings this season for Hawaii.
