SandBows return from successful week on road

In a word … dominant.

The goal for No. 2 Hawaii on Sunday was to have all five of its sand volleyball pairs reach the championship final of their respective brackets. Four of five did, with the Rainbow Wahine sweeping the bracket tournament portion of the Santa Cruz (Calif.) Collegiate Challenge on Main Beach.

Hawaii (10-1) returns to Honolulu on Monday with three bracket titles — gold, silver and bronze — from the six-school event. Leading the way was the No. 1 pair of Nikki Taylor and Brittany Tiegs, who defeated UH-2 Katie Spieler-Olivia Urban 21-19 in an abbreviated final that Spieler-Urban conceded due to illness.

UH-3 Sammie Brown and Hannah Rooks won the silver bracket (for the Nos. 3 and 4 pairs) over Santa Clara-4 Katrina Inch-Sarah Vacarro 21-18, 21-14. Inch-Vacarro prevented the all-Hawaii final by rallying past UH-4 Lara Schreiber-Heather Boyan 17-21, 21-10, 15-12 in the semifinals.

The bronze bracket title went to UH-5 London Chow-Hannah Zalopany over CSU Bakersfield-5 Star Tucker-Campbell and Luiza Martins.

Ka‘iwi Schucht-Mikayla Tucker won the exhibition bracket for the No. 6 pairs. Scores for both matches were unavailable.

"It was a good week, a long week, but a very good one for us," Hawaii coach Jeff Hall said, his team also winning all four duals on the road trip. "I’m very proud of the way the players finished. Sometimes at the end of a road trip, it can go the other way. To have that many teams in the three finals says a lot about our depth. I think the people up here (in northern California) think that Hawaii is pretty dang good. "

It was the third time in four tournaments this season that Spieler-Urban lost in the gold final. Hall said that Urban wasn’t feeling well prior to the championship match but "gutted it out" when falling 21-19 in Set 1 to Taylor-Tiegs.

Hawaii next competes at the USAV Beach Collegiate Challenge on April 11-12 in Hermosa Beach, Calif. The next series of home matches for the SandBows is their Sand Volleyball Showcase pairs tournament April 18 with San Jose State, Grand Canyon and Hawaii Pacific at Queen’s Beach.