UH Wahine loses to BYU in set 5

The chants of “Let’s Go ’Bows” turned into “Let’s Go Five.”

For most of the 2 hours and 14 minutes that was unthinkable.

Improbable. Impossible.

Hawaii was losing — and losing badly — to No. 10 Brigham Young on Thursday night at the Stan Sheriff Center. That it went five some would consider a moral victory. It was anything but as the Rainbow Wahine lost their third five-setter this young season, as well as their eighth straight match against a ranked team dating back to 2015.

The kills — McKenna Granato’s 23, Emily Maglio’s 14 — the defensive thrills — Savanah Kahakai’s 20 digs — and the fight after an embarrassing start went for naught. In the end, what what wrong in the first two sets came back to haunt Hawaii in the fifth.

The runs, runs, runs and runaway.

Led by Veronica Jones-Perry’s 27 kills — four coming in the deciding set — the Cougars pulled out a 25-18, 25-12, 16-25, 15-25, 15-7 victory in Thursday’s second match of the Outrigger Resorts Volleyball Challenge.

McKenna Miller added 19 kills and the Cougars took control midway in Set 5, breaking away from 3-3 to 14-6 while breaking the hearts of the 4,004 in attendance.

BYU (7-0) will face Nevada (2-4) today at 4:45 p.m. Hawaii takes on Baylor (6-2) in tonight’s second match. In Thursday’s opener, senior hitter Katie Staiger put down 19 kills and the Bears held off Nevada 25-10, 25-13, 23-25, 29-27.

It was another roller coaster of a night and “I don’t like roller coasters,” Wahine coach Robyn Ah Mow-Santos said. “We need to come out like we did in Sets 3 and 4 from the start.

“The energy needs to happen from the beginning,” Kahakai said. “The fight is there, just not in the first set.”

Hawaii again got stuck in a bad rotation in Set 1, one where the Wahine had no answer for Jones-Perry. She put down four straight kills as the Cougars pulled away for good at 14-7 on an 8-0 run.

Jones Perry had more kills (13) than the entire Wahine team (10) and had 11 kills before committing an error.

In Set 2, Hawaii won a video replay challenge, getting a touch call to pull to 10-8. The Cougars didn’t get mad but did get more than even, scoring 11 unanswered for a 21-8 lead. The very real question became whether Hawaii would reach double digits. The Wahine did, and in doing so, gained a little momentum.

It turned into a tsunami as Hawaii came out of the locker room on a mission. With Kahakai’s spin serve giving the Cougars fits, the Wahine jumped out 15-7, helped by two kills by Maglio and two aces from Kahakai.

Jones-Perry put down her career-high 22nd kill to hold off one set point, but it was too late, as a Cougars hitting error ended it.

Set 4 was a near repeat, with Hawaii’s tough serving keeping BYU out of system. Granato had six kills and sophomore middle Natasha Burns, making her first appearance of the season, had two late, putting Hawaii ahead 24-14.

Baylor 3, Nevada 1

Staiger added a double-double, finishing with 16 of the Bears’ 79 digs. Freshman setter Hannah Lockin also had a double-double (52 assists-11 digs) and freshman hitter Yossiana Pressley added 13 kills.

Sophomore hitter Shayla Hoeft (Seabury Hall) led the Wolf Pack with 13 kills and freshman hitter Kayla Afoa (Kamehameha) had 10 of the team’s 58 digs.

Nevada had five chances at forcing a fifth game, the last coming at 26-25. Baylor finished it out with a 3-1 run to end it in 113 minutes.