Consider it a March Madness bracket challenge, sand volleyball style.
And, just as the late Jim Valvano said, "Survive and advance."
The top-seeded pair of Kirby Burnham-Sarah Hughes did more than survive in the gold championship bracket on Saturday. The USC No. 1 duo advanced all the way to the Queen’s Beach center court to receive the monkeypod bowls inscribed "Jack in the Box Rainbow Spring Challenge champions."
Burnham and Hughes had extended stays during the award ceremony following their 21-18, 21-16 victory over Hawaii’s Brittany Tiegs-Karissa Cook, seeded second. Burnham, a 6-foot-2 senior, was named the tournament’s best blocker, and Hughes, a 5-10 freshman, the best defender.
That winning combination showed throughout the two-day event, that began with pool play Friday and concluded with seeded bracket play Saturday. Burnham-Hughes, who fell to Tiegs-Cook 2-1 in Wednesday’s dual match, easily won three matches Friday in straight sets, and dropped just one set Saturday, that coming in the semifinal to USC teammates Eve Ettinger-Bria Russ, 19-21, 21-12, 15-11.
"It was fun to come out there, be on the beach, play a lot of good teams and teams we haven’t played this season," said Burnham, who had two indoor seasons for the Women of Troy before going strictly sand since spring 2012. "It’s different playing outdoors, with wind. When we play on Figueroa (where USC’s Merle Norman Stadium is located on campus) there’s not the winds and other stuff at the beach.
"Hawaii’s No. 1 team (Tiegs-Cook) is really good. Unlike some of the other teams, they don’t have a big blocker, they are split block (trade blocking rotations). They beat us in three Wednesday and it was nice to come out with a win over them today."
Tiegs-Cook (16-2) were seeking to go 2-for-2 in tournament finals hosted by Hawaii at Queen’s. They won the Rainbow Wahine Invitational two weeks ago and didn’t drop a set in this tournament until the final.
Cook won her second individual award in two Queen’s events, adding "Best Offense" Saturday to her "Best Blocker" from March 8. She and Tiegs also prevented an all-USC final when they eliminated Kelly Claes-Alexa Strange 21-16, 21-17 in the semifinals.
Hawaii had four of its seven teams advance to the gold bracket, which consisted of the top 16 teams from pool play. The silver bracket, which finished the third-place teams from pool play, saw the remaining three Hawaii teams advance to the semifinals.
In the all-UH silver final, Karlee Riggs-Hannah Rooks held off SandBows teammates Mikayla Tucker-Sidney Shinn, 21-11, 22-20. Overall Hawaii was 16-6 on Saturday.
"We knew we didn’t play well the day before," said Rooks, who continually baffled opposing blockers as a left-handed hitter. "We knew we’d have to fight hard if we wanted to win today’s bracket. And we did.
"So far the season’s been great. There’s been a couple of tough losses but our super young team has a lot of potential."
No. 3 Hawaii (7-2), which played six of the past eight days, heads back out on the road Tuesday night. The SandBows face UCLA and San Francisco in dual matches on Thursday in Larkspur, Calif., followed by the Stanford Tournament Saturday and Sunday with UCLA, Santa Clara and the host Cardinal.
"We’ve gotten in a lot of volleyball in the past eight days and not a lot of days off," UH coach Scott Wong said. "But we want to play high-level competition whenever and wherever in the world.
"Today was about seeing who was going to respond after some long days of volleyball. We were able to get all seven teams a lot of matches. We’re still looking at teams and we want to be taking our best five teams on the road."
Wong also gave No. 2 USC credit.
"I think overall they were sharper than us," said Wong, of losing to the Women of Troy 3-2 in Wednesday’s dual. "At this point, I’m more concerned in the development of our pairs and our team overall. I thought the teams we were working on some things with got better."
Hawaii’s top two teams are set Tiegs-Rooks and Katie Spieler-Nikki Taylor. It was the first tournament in three weeks that Spieler-Taylor did not reach the pairs final; they lost to Ettinger-Russ in the Round of 16, 12-21, 21-10, 18-16.
