USC kicks sand in Hawaii’s face

The gap between No. 3 and No. 5 turned into a gaping chasm Tuesday night as defending national champion USC dominated Hawaii in a collegiate beach volleyball match at the T.C. Ching Complex courts.

The Women of Troy (6-2) turned a tight 1-1 into a 4-1 runaway victory, winning the last three flights of a televised match against the Rainbow Wahine (3-4). Hawaii’s lone win came at No. 4 when Hannah Rooks and Ka’iwi Schucht (UH) swept Jenna Belton-Katrina Kemochan 21-15, 21-19.

“They played exceptional,” Hawaii coach Jeff Hall said of USC. “Our lower end played well. It’s not that our upper pairs didn’t play well. but they played exceptional, didn’t give us any points.

“I like the pairings we have and we’ll continue to work at getting better.”

“We gave them a great fight at the bottom of the lineup,” added UH assistant coach Evan Silberstein. “We were very close to being up 2-1 and inflicting some pressure. They are very experienced at the top of their lineup. It would take a flawless effort to beat them at No. 1.”

The Women of Troy capped the win with an impressive victory at No. 1. All-Americans Kelly Claes and Sara Hughes ran their record to 8-0 by sweeping Katie Spieler-Emily Maglio 21-16, 21-9.

It was 11-8 when Hughes went back to serve in Set 2; when she was done, it was 20-8 and “sometimes that happens,” Spieler said. “We’ll take what we learned and keep working.”

Unlike last season’s match against USC, when the outcome was decided before the telecast began at the No. 2 flight — the Women of Troy were up 3-0 at that point — the SandBows were only behind 2-1 when Nikki Taylor and Lara Schreiber took on veterans Sophie Bukovec and Alexa Strange.

Taylor-Schreiber, playing in just their third match together, struggled to find a rhythm against the All-America pair that went 33-10 last season. Taylor blocked Bukovec to pull UH to 19-16 in Set 1, but it wasn’t enough, as Strange added a kill and Bukovec had her serve trickle over the tape for a set-ending ace.

Set 2 was tight until the second changeover, with SC holding an 8-6 lead. By the third changeover, the lead was 13-8, with Bukovic’s block of Taylor highlighting an 8-2 closing run.

The match emotionally hinged at No. 3, where Ginger Long and Mikayla Tucker took a hard-fought 21-19 Set 1 against Nicolette Martin-Allie Wheeler. The SandBows appeared headed for a sweep when they took a 14-11 lead in Set 2 but couldn’t hold on against the tough serving of Martin, who had two aces during a 5-1 run that gave the Women of Troy the momentum and Set 2 at 21-17.

It carried over to Set 3. At 9-9, Martin put down four kills as SC closed it out 15-11.

Note

Hawaii graduate student Heather Boyan, continuing to recuperate from a serious accident on Feb. 27, came to support her teammates Tuesday. Boyan was released from The Queen’s Medical Center on Thursday, after suffering a punctured lung, 10 broken ribs and a broken scapula in a fall while hiking the Ka’au Crater trail in Palolo Valley.

“It could have been much worse,” Boyan said. “It was very scary, but I think I had an angel on my side. There’s a long recuperation ahead.”

Boyan said she’ll discuss the situation with the UH coaches, but since she will be done with her master’s degree in kinesiology this spring, it is unlikely she’d return for another season even if granted a medical hardship. Boyan played four seasons of indoor volleyball at Western Kentucky, graduated in December 2014, and played last spring as a first-year graduate student.