Recent history certainly favors Hawaii entering tonight’s renewal of the women’s volleyball program’s long-time rivalry with Long Beach State.
After all, the Rainbow Wahine have won the past seven meetings with the Beach dating back to 2016, and you have to go back two more years to find Long Beach State’s last win in Honolulu.
Of more current concern for the Wahine will be carrying the momentum of back-to-back sweeps to open the Big West season into a matchup against a Long Beach State team on the rebound after a rough start in conference play.
“I feel like for our conference it doesn’t really matter what anyone’s record is,” UH senior Brooke Van Sickle said.
“Whenever we play certain teams in our conference, they’re always going to want to play their hardest against us. So it doesn’t matter about their record, they’re going to come firing, for sure.”
When Hawaii (5-5, 2-0 BWC) and Long Beach State (7-7, 1-2) last met, the Rainbow Wahine clinched the Big West championship with a 25-18, 25-12, 25-20 senior night sweep of the Beach at a sold-out Stan Sheriff Center.
Hawaii’s recent run of success against LBSU widened the all-time margin to 33-22-1 (the tie came in a tournament in 1978) in a storied series highlighted by duels between Hall of Fame coaches Dave Shoji and Brian Gimmillaro.
Current Hawaii coach Robyn Ah Mow and LBSU’s Joy McKienzie-Fuerbringer played in the series and now lead their teams into tonight’s meeting, which will be far less raucous than the vast majority of the previous 56. Restrictions on gatherings will again keep fans out of SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center when UH opens its first Big West homestand of the season, which concludes Sunday with UH facing Cal State Fullerton.
Tonight’s match will feature the top two kill leaders in Van Sickle and Long Beach State junior outside hitter Kashauna Williams.
Williams tops the conference and ranks 20th in the country with 4.58 kills per set and won three of the first four Big West Offensive Player of the Week awards this season. She has posted double-figure kills in all but one match and had at least 20 five times, including LBSU’s four-set upset of No. 21 San Diego on Sept. 18 at the Walter Pyramid.
“Kashauna Williams is one of the best attackers in the Big West, we’ve known that for the last three years since she’s been playing at Long Beach State,” UH assistant coach Kaleo Baxter said. “She has a heavy arm and she has the ability to take over a match. So we’re going to dial in to what she likes to do and hopefully we can get positive touches up at the block and turn those digs into points.”
Baxter also noted the contributions of freshman Erykah Lovett, who averages 2.89 kills per set and leads the conference with 24 service aces, 10 more than the next highest total. Lovett was on the service line for 12 consecutive points in the third set of LBSU’s 25-22, 25-21, 25-8 win over Cal State Fullerton on Tuesday. The Beach had opened the Big West season with losses at home to Cal Poly and CSU Bakersfield last weekend.
“(Lovett) also has a really good arm and she has a wicked jump serve, “ said Baxter, who compared her serve to that of former UH All-American Norene Iosia. “So we’re going to have to win the serve-and-pass battle. They’ve settled in on a lineup, as have we, and it’s going to be a battle.”
UH’s ability to control the first touch last week helped ease the load on Van Sickle, who remains second in the Big West with 3.89 kills and 4.64 points per set. Freshman setter Kate Lang spread the attacks throughout the UH lineup, which helped Van Sickle hit .468 in wins at UC Riverside and UC Davis to earn the Big West Offensive Player of the Week award.
“It definitely helps a lot when everyone’s firing away,” Van Sickle said. “Not only does it give me more opportunities to have a one-on-one block, but also spreading the (offense is) tough on teams, you don’t know where the ball is going to go.”
Long Beach State (7-7, 1-2 BWC) at Hawaii (5-5, 2-0)
>> When: Today at SimpliFi Arena, 7 p.m.
>> TV: Spectrum OC 16
>> Radio: 1420-AM/92.7-FM
>> Online: ESPN+
