Rainbow Wahine to face Mississippi State in NCAA women’s volleyball tournament
JAMM AQUINO / NOV. 27
Hawaii outside hitter Brooke Van Sickle (2), middle, celebrated with teammates after winning the fourth set of an NCAA women’s volleyball game between the Hawaii Rainbow Wahine and the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos on Saturday.
The University of Hawaii women’s volleyball team will face Mississippi State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday in Seattle.
The 64-team bracket was announced Sunday and the Big West champion Rainbow Wahine (21-7, 18-2) will make the program’s 39th NCAA Tournament appearance against a Mississippi State team (25-5, 16-2 SEC) making its first appearance in the bracket.
Washington, the tournament’s 15th seed, will host first- and second-round matches on Friday and Saturday with the survivor advancing to the regionals next week. The Huskies will face Brown in the other first-round match.
The Rainbow Wahine clinched the school’s 10th Big West championship and the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament with a win over Cal State Northridge on Friday.
UH dropped its regular-season finale against Big West runner-up UC Santa Barbara in five sets on Saturday to snap a 10-match winning streak.
UH entered the final homestand at No. 53 in the NCAA RPI prior to the split to close the regular season.
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The trip will be UH’s sixth to Seattle for the NCAA Tournament since 2010. The last came in 2017 and UH closed Robyn Ah Mow’s first year as head coach with a five-set loss to Illinois.
The Rainbow Wahine were shut out of the 48-team NCAA Tournament that was played the past spring due to the Big West canceling fall sports for the 2020-21 season. It marked the first NCAA Tournament held without Hawaii in the field since 1992.
