Wahine in beach volleyball semifinals, face Long Beach State

Perfect it wasn’t. But it was pretty close.

Top-seeded Hawaii dropped just one set in opening the inaugural Big West beach volleyball championship tournament with a 5-0 sweep of Cal Poly on Friday at Huntington Beach, Calif.

The fifth-ranked Rainbow Wahine (14-8) move into today’s championship bracket semifinal against second-seeded Long Beach State at 6 a.m. The 49ers (12-12) won their opener 5-0 over third-seeded Cal State Northridge without dropping a set.

Both Hawaii and Long Beach State had first-round byes Friday. Today will be the third time the two will meet this season and the second time in eight days; the SandBows have won both 4-1, including on April 22 at the Outrigger Resorts Aloha Invitational at Queen’s Beach.

Friday’s one dropped set came at the No. 4 flight when Ari Homayun and Hannah Rooks had to rally to defeat the Mustangs’ Raeann Greisen and Katherine Brouker 19-21, 21-11, 15-9.

“I’m really proud of the way they recovered and came back to win,” Hawaii coach Jeff Hall said. “Everyone played well today.”

Perhaps the best effort came at the No. 1 flight, where Katie Spieler and Emily Maglio dominated Jacqui Martin and Casey Carroll, 21-4, 21-9 in what Hall called “maybe the quickest dual match I’ve ever seen played.”

“They played unbelievable and a lot of the other team’s points were on our mistakes,” he added.

“We’re looking forward to playing Long Beach. They’re playing maybe their best volleyball right now and Coach Mike (Campbell) has them peaking at the right time. They recognize that their backs are against the wall and in all likelihood need to win this tournament to get into the NCAAs.”

Win or lose this event, Hawaii — No. 2 in the Ratings Percentage Index — likely would get one of the two at-large spots into next week’s inaugural NCAA championship at Gulf Shores, Ala. The tournament field will be announced on Sunday on NCAA.com at 4 p.m.

The Hawaii-Long Beach State winner advances to Saturday’s championship of the double-elimination event. The loser plays the winner of an elimination match between CSUN and Cal Poly. The winner of that match advances to the championship.