University of Hawaii beach volleyball team loses to Cal Poly

Injuries are part of athletics.

This one may have hurt Hawaii’s chances for a fourth consecutive NCAA appearance.

The fifth-ranked Rainbow Wahine beach volleyball team lost junior Julia Scoles to an apparent back injury during Saturday’s Big West tournament semifinal with No. 8 Cal Poly. The SandBows went on to lose the match with the Mustangs 4-1 and, eventually, the tournament title to Cal Poly in a 3-2 defeat in the championship match at Zuma Beach in Malibu, Calif.

Hawaii (26-9) will learn its postseason fate during today’s selection show on NCAA.com (1 p.m.). SandBows coach Jeff Hall felt it was a 50-50 chance they’d be playing next week in Gulf Shores, Ala., “and that’s being a pessimist,” he said.

“Just based on how Hawaii has been treated by the selection committee. I think we’ve done enough, but it’s a situation we created, putting the decision into someone else’s hand. But hats off to our kids. We had to juggle the lineup and we had our chances.”

The afternoon match with the Mustangs was tied 2-2 after Hawaii won at flights 3 and 4, and Cal Poly flights 1 and 2. It came down to flight 5, where Paige Dreeuws and Sofia Russo had a swing at winning after leading Set 3 19-18; the Mustangs’ duo of Vanessa Roscoe-Brayden Gruenewald rallied to close it out 21-18, 19-21, 21-19.

Had Hawaii won, it would have forced a second match with Cal Poly in the double-elimination event.

If there was a bright spot on Saturday, it was the play of junior Norene Iosia, who joined the team last week after finishing spring indoor training. She traveled as an alternate and would only be allowed to play due to injury or illness, which happened when Scoles went down in Set 2 of the semifinal.

Iosia teamed with senior Ari Homayun at Flight 4 to win two matches, the first in the losers bracket final against Long Beach State that eliminated the 49ers and lifted the SandBows into a rematch with the Mustangs. Iosia-Homayun then defeated Cal Poly’s Delaney Peranich-Samantha Manley 16-21, 21-19, 15-10 to tie the dual at 2-2.

“Norene played really well,” Hall said. “She knows how to play volleyball, has all the all-around skills needed on the beach. We’re hoping that she’ll be able to help us again in Alabama.”

The Mustangs have defeated the SandBows all three of their meetings this season.

“They came out ready to play this morning,” Hall said. “They were the better team today. I liked our chances if we had gotten another chance at them.

“We got out-coached and out-played.”

Three teams from both the west and east regions will earn berths, as well as two at-large teams. Hawaii, which had won all three of the previous Big West tournaments, has finished third at the NCAA tournament the past two years.

Hall considers Hawaii a bubble team along with Loyola Marymount, Stetson and Florida International. The SandBows have two wins over LMU, but the Lions have two wins over Pepperdine; the Waves defeated Hawaii twice 3-2.