Playing near her hometown, Hawaii senior Skyler Williams finished off her final appearance at Long Beach State in style.
The Rainbow Wahine middle blocker from Bellflower, Calif., opened Saturday’s match at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach with a solo block and teamed with fellow senior Brooke Van Sickle on UH’s 13th roof of the night to close out a four-set victory.
“It was awesome, I literally got chills,” Williams said of the walk-off block. “It was great to take take care of our assignments, and the fact that it was match point was awesome.”
UH’s presence at the net helped the Rainbow Wahine fight off Long Beach State’s comeback bid and claim sole possession of first place in the Big West with a 25-21, 25-11, 21-25, 25-19 win.
UH (16-6, 13-1 Big West) began the day tied with UC Santa Barbara for the top spot in the conference. But the Gauchos dropped a four-set loss to Cal Poly at home to fall a game behind the Rainbow Wahine with three weekends left in the regular season.
“It is what it is,” UH coach Robyn Ah Mow said of UH’s perch in the standings. “We still have to focus on one game at a time.”
The Wahine return home to face UC Irvine on Friday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center in their first match of the season without a cap on attendance.
UH outside hitter Riley Wagoner led four Rainbow Wahine attackers in double figures with 15 kills in 44 swings in the program’s ninth consecutive win in the series with Long Beach State.
Van Sickle finished with 12 kills and 17 digs and middle blocker Amber Igiede added 11 kills on 14 errorless attempts for a career-high .786 hitting percentage.
Williams had 11 kills and six blocks. Igiede and Tiffany Westerberg, who had seven kills in her first start of the season, were also in on six blocks.
UH setter Kate Lang turned in her fifth straight double-double with 41 assists and 10 digs and libero Tayli Ikenaga helped anchor the Wahine defense with 16 digs.
After Friday’s sweep at Cal State Fullerton, Ah Mow wanted to see a sharper connection between Lang and the UH middles. The middles hit a combined .636 with 22 kills in 33 attempts with one error on Saturday.
Kashauna Williams, the Big West leader in kills per set, led Long Beach State (10-15, 4-10) with 14 kills but had 11 errors and hit .081. The Beach hit .133 as a team, while UH finished at .287.
Skyler Williams opened and closed the first set with solo blocks and UH had five in the set. Along with scoring directly, the block helped influence LBSU into 15 hitting errors in the first two sets and 28 in the match.
“That’s something we definitely work on in the practice gym,” Skyler Williams said. “It was great that we executed and got the blocks we did and the touches.
“We want to stay low and disciplined and we want them to do something out of the ordinary.”
UH hit .545 to LBSU’s .069 and converted on 11 of 12 sideout opportunities to run away with the second set. Long Beach State battled back and closed the third set on a 4-0 run to extend the match.
LBSU rolled the momentum into the fourth set and took an 8-4 lead to force a UH timeout. The Wahine responded with a four-point surge that included two kills and a block from Igiede.
With the set tied at 15-all, UH went on a 5-0 run with Janelle Gong on the service line. UH led 23-19 when Williams put away her final kill to give UH match point and her block alongside Van Sickle closed out the match.
“It was awesome to see,” Ah Mow said of the 4-1 closing run. “They never dipped too much, and I think Long Beach played a good game defensively. Although we lost a set, I’m happy with the how the girls kept fighting through.”
