Wahine win in 4

After spending the week focused on the volleyball postseason, ninth-ranked Hawaii went out against UC Davis on Thursday and played a bunch of points like it hadn’t started the preseason yet.

After two hours of Jekyll-and-Hyde volleyball, quantity won out over a lack of quality as 16 Rainbow Wahine combined to beat the Aggies 23-25, 25-16, 25-21, 25-16.

UH (16-2) took all 3,724 at the Stan Sheriff Center along for the ride. It is 9-0 in the Big West going into Saturday’s match against Pacific, which fell in five at Cal State Northridge on Thursday. The Wahine are riding an NCAA-best 64-match conference winning streak.

That meant nothing to Davis (10-11, 4-4) in the teams’ first meeting.

UCD’s serving found huge holes in the opening set and, with UH junior Emily Hartong suffering through a rare slump and Jane Croson still under suspension and on the bench, the Aggies held on.

The momentum shifted dramatically in Set 2, along with Hawaii’s passing. It hit .441 behind Ashley Kastl and freshman Tai Manu-Olevao. Kastl had her finest night as a Wahine, collecting a season-high 17 digs to go with 11 kills and a .455 hitting percentage — 260 points over her average.

"Ashley showed what she can do," UH coach Dave Shoji said. "I know she’s a good player. She averaged almost four kills a game last year in the Pac-12 so she can get kills and it’s showing."

It has been awhile coming for Kastl, clearly frustrated the first half of the season.

"I’ve been working really hard," the junior said. "After last week’s game I was just like, I have to upgrade my offense. I need to get better."

Manu-Olevao contributed nine kills on .348 hitting in her second start. They gave Hawaii just enough offense until Hartong could find her form. She finished with a match-high 18 kills, going 12-for-22 in the final two sets.

"Her timing was a little off, but once she got her rhythm she was terrific," Shoji said of Hartong. "We’re trying to go fast and she’s not comfortable with that yet."

By the middle of the third set, Shoji had already used 15 players, subbing for both starting middles and getting great rotations from Stephanie Hagins and Kristiana Tuaniga.

They had to because Davis was not going away. It blew to a 7-2 advantage in the third before Manu-Olevao, Hartong and a host of subs brought UH back.

Hawaii took its first lead at 19-18 and outscored UCD 12-5 in the end, with Hartong going for seven kills in the set. UH hit .353 in the third, despite needing 10 serves to get its first kill.

"We just have such a deep bench," Kastl said. "There are so many people that contribute at practice, people who grind and bust their butts to do the best they can. Those people that don’t get in the matches sometimes, you don’t realize how hard they work. They’re the ones that are making us better."

Shoji was happy with his team’s tenacity and more impressed with the Aggies — in their seventh year as a Division I program — than their coach, Jamie Holmes, sounded.

"I thought the defensive efforts by both teams were really hit and miss," said Holmes, who starts three seniors and five upperclassmen. "More miss on our side than Hawaii’s side. But on both sides I thought the defensive effort could have been better, and not just the effort but the mental side of the game."

Davis got 13 kills apiece from Allison Whitson and Devon Damello, who dropped a flurry of offspeed kills in huge pukas on the UH side.

On the bright side for the Wahine, they pulled their hitting percentage up to .341 for the match, after a paltry .171 in the opening set. Kastl and Manu-Olevao had just one error apiece and UH hit over .400 in Sets 2 and 4.

"Davis played well," Shoji said. "They are really scrappy, dug a ton of balls and we had trouble stopping their offense, so it was a tough match for us. But our team just hung in there and did get into kind of a rhythm."