Hawaii’s Ari Homayun and Carly Kan earned the Big West’s inaugural pairs team of the week award on Monday after helping the Rainbow Wahine go 4-0 on their season-opening beach volleyball road trip. Homayun, a sophomore, and Kan, who played the past four indoor seasons at Missouri, went 4-0 at the No. 5 flight as the SandBows also went 4-0 in Arizona. The duo won three of four matches in straight sets, with the only match going three coming against No. 6 Arizona.
Also on Monday, Hawaii kept the same ranking from the preseason poll in the first regular-season AVCA Top 15: No. 5. Defending national champion USC (2-0) and Florida State (2-0) also kept their preseason rankings, coming in at Nos. 1 and 2, with Pepperdine (1-1) moving up a spot to No. 3 and UCLA (2-2) dropping a spot to No. 4.
Hawaii’s first home matches are Friday and Saturday at Queen’s Beach. The SandBows host Loyola Marymount (2-2) and No. 9 Stetson (1-2) in the Queen’s Cup.
Warriors remain at No. 4 in poll
Hawaii, winner of its past 13 matches, stayed at No. 4 in Monday’s AVCA Division I-II Men’s Volleyball Top 15.
The Rainbow Warriors (18-2, 8-2 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation) remained behind unanimous No. 1 Ohio State (18-0), No. 2 Long Beach State (17-2, 13-1 MPSF) and No. 3 BYU (15-2, 9-1 MPSF).
Hawaii puts its 11-match home winning streak on the line this week against No. 8 Stanford (11-7, 6-5 MPSF). The Warriors host the Cardinal in 7 p.m. matches Friday and Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center.
Krieger hired to lead Vulcans volleyball
Former Division II national coach of the year Gene Krieger will become Hawaii Hilo’s new women’s volleyball coach, the school announced Monday.
Krieger led his squads to conference and regional titles at Cal Poly Pomona, California Baptist, Westmont and Western Oregon. He boasts a 367-210 career collegiate record. Krieger will replace Tino Reyes, who coached the Vulcans for seven seasons and finished with a 78-84 record.
Sharks split with Azusa Pacific
Freshman pitcher Emiliee Leonard hit a walkoff home run leading off the bottom of the seventh to lead Hawaii Pacific’s softball team in a 1-0 win over Azusa Pacific on Monday at Howard A. Okita Field.
The Sharks (8-4, 3-1 PacWest) fell in the opener to the Cougars (13-5, 5-1 PacWest), 3-2 in eight innings.
Point Loma shuts out HPU baseball
Hawaii Pacific dropped all four games to Point Loma, closing out the series with 5-0 and 2-0 losses on Monday in San Diego. The Sharks (11-7, 1-5 PacWest) recorded just six hits in the doubleheader, while the Sea Lions (10-3, 4-0 PacWest) racked up 16 hits.
