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IRVINE, Calif. >> Revenge, it is said, is a dish best served cold.
No. 21 Hawaii might beg to differ. On Saturday, revenge was served hot a dozen times.
The Rainbow Wahine
(18-3, 8-2 Big West) avenged their worst loss of the season — a five-set upset by UC Irvine in Honolulu on Oct. 4 — by serving up a season-high 12 aces in a 27-25, 25-17, 25-21 Big West volleyball sweep of the Anteaters. A season-high crowd of 833 in the Bren Events Center saw senior setter Bailey Choy and junior defensive specialist Kyra Hanawahine finish with UH career highs of four aces during the 107 minutes.
Senior setter-hitter Norene Iosia added two aces, moving up the career charts into a tie for fifth with Aneli Cubi-Otineru with 121. Iosia also turned in her 13th career double-double (14 assists, 10 digs) as Hawaii remained a half-game behind conference co-leaders Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara.
The Wahine host the Gauchos (18-2, 8-1) on Friday and the Mustangs (15-6, 8-2) next Sunday at the Stan Sheriff Center, critical matches for all three teams.
“That will be super exciting,” Hanawahine said. “We had two sweeps and hopefully we’ll be able to use all that confidence, all that energy, to get big wins this week.
“From a serving standpoint, their middles kind of beat up on us (on Oct. 4) so we wanted to take them out of system, force them to go to their pin (outside) hitters. And our key was to stay in system.”
Hawaii contained UCI middle Onye Ofoegbu, holding the 6-foot-3 freshman to eight kills on .091 hitting; she had 13 kills and hit .440 at the Sheriff Center. The injury-riddled Anteaters got 10 kills each from sophomore hitter Abby Marjama and junior hitter Cassie Stewart in losing their fifth straight at home.
The Wahine had no one in double-figure kills but, with 13 blocks, they didn’t need to. It was the 14th time Hawaii had 10 or more stuffs and, on Saturday, it was junior middle Sky Williams who led the Wahine with seven.
“I think being quicker on my feet helped,” said Williams, finishing with a team-high nine kills with just one error. “And our serving was amazing. I felt like everyone went after it on serve.”
Hawaii had 10 aces and 11 service errors in the previous meeting with UCI. On Saturday, the Wahine had just three errors.
The biggest difference in the 22 days was Hawaii’s ability to close. On Oct. 4, the Wahine saw a 22-21 Set 3 lead turn into a 25-23 loss en route to the Anteaters winning in five, their first victory in 41 meetings with Hawaii.
On Saturday in Set 3, UCI cut Hawaii’s 19-16 lead to tie at 19 when Williams hit long for her first error in two matches. It brought up memories, most of them bad, for her.
“I remember what it felt like when we were home,” she said. “Tonight, we tried so hard not to let that happen again. We know we are better than we showed that night.”
Iosia went right back to Williams, who broke what would be the fifth and last tie. Choy followed with an ace and, after a UCI timeout, Iosia had a solo block of Carissa MacDonald and Choy added her final ace for a
23-19 lead.
The Anteaters pulled to 23-21 and coach Robyn Ah Mow called her last timeout.
“The coaches are telling us ‘We’re up two sets, you’re up two points, don’t let them coming back get in our heads,’ ” Choy said. “We just have to keep the mind-set, the determination we’re going to win and push through it.”
The strategic timeout worked. MacDonald netted her serve and a hitting error by Marjama sent Hawaii back home on a five-match win streak.
Sets 1 and 2 ended in the same fashion: an ace. It was freshman Hanna Hellvig’s lone ace of the match gave the Wahine Set 1 on their third set point. It was libero Rika Okino’s ace that finished off Set 2, which Hawaii led from the start.
The Anteaters were missing several players from that win over the Wahine, most notably 6-3 junior hitter Loryn Carter who had 13 kills. Carter broke her pinkie finger during that match on a block attempt of McKenna Ross and has been out since.
“At the end of Set 3, I thought we made a couple of key errors in serve-receive, got aced a couple times,” UCI coach Ashlie Hain said when asked what it would have taken to force a Set 4. “They served OK, but I think it was more us, having three freshmen out there and not having the communication.
“Thought we were playing well enough to win some sets. Hawaii’s a good team.”
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