SandBows hope journey ends with a title

It is not easy to get to Gulf Shores, Ala. But neither is winning a national championship.

The two journeys become one for second-seeded Hawaii at this week’s AVCA Collegiate Sand Volleyball Championships. The Rainbow Wahine (17-1) left Tuesday, hoping travel will be better than last year as well as their overall results.

Last season, Hawaii’s flight out of Houston was canceled, putting the SandBows in vans to drive east for some 500 miles. Fourth-seeded Hawaii upset top-ranked USC 3-2 but fell to No. 3 Florida State 4-1 to share third in the team competition.

In pairs play, the All-American duo of Katie Spieler-Nikki Taylor lost in the quarterfinals while All-Americans Brittany Tiegs-Karissa Cook finished second, losing 21-15, 21-13 in the final to USC’s Kirby Turnham-Sarah Hughes.

Some things have changed for Hawaii since last year, including some changes in partner pairings. The biggest, perhaps, is the SandBows’ seeding: once-beaten Hawaii (17-1) has matched its ranking with its seed at No. 2.

"I think our chance of winning the team title is legitimate," said Spieler, who is 29-8 with Olivia Urban at the No. 2 flight. "When it comes to playing in Alabama, anything can happen.

"Being a veteran and having played there, what I’ve told the new players is if they aren’t motived now, nothing will motivate them. This is the biggest thing of your career, this is what we’ve worked for day in and day out."

Out of the 14 UH players traveling, only six competed in Alabama last season and none of those six has the same partner as last May. Back are Tiegs, now with Taylor at No. 1; Urban, who was at No. 4, now with Spieler at 2; Mikayla Tucker, 15-1 with new partner Ka‘iwi Schucht mostly at No. 4; and London Chow, having the most success at 4-1 with Hannah Rooks at 4 or 5.

Hawaii opens Friday’s double-elimination team play against the last team it played — and beat — seventh-seeded Long Beach State. The SandBows downed the 49ers (14-5) Saturday at Queen’s Beach 4-1 and also have a 3-2 victory from April 11 at Hermosa Beach, Calif.

"Long Beach is a very good team," said Danny Alvarez, a fourth-year volunteer assistant coach. "Looking at the one loss Saturday (Delainey Aigner-Swesy and Chelsea Cabrajac defeated Tiegs-Taylor 21-18, 22-20) it was very close and we have to consider that Nikki hadn’t played a match for over two weeks (elbow strain). We’re expecting to be in another battle with them.

"Where I think we’ve improved from last year is overall but especially at our lower flights, at 3, 4, 5. They’ve developed, had some struggles but also have had some really big wins for us. Realistically, we have a shot (to win the title)."

Depending on the outcome in the opener of the double-elimination bracket, the SandBows will face either the winner of No. 3 Florida International (18-1) and No. 6 Florida State (13-4), or the loser. The top seeds in the other half of the bracket are No. 1 USC (24-0) and defending champion Pepperdine (10-4) at No. 4.

Play runs through Saturday’s final. The top eight pairs from the team championship advance to Sunday’s pairs portion along with eight others that move on through various processes.

It’s going to be a new experience for first-year coach Jeff Hall and "I don’t know what Gulf Shores is yet," he said. "I’ve heard it’s a great place, beautiful but hard to get to. But when you’re traveling from Hawaii, you’re used to road trips. It’s part of the experience.

"Winning has been our goal from the very beginning and we’re very close to realizing it. When you look at our record, our body of work, this is our best opportunity right now. We still need to work on some things but I think it’s very realistic."