Wahine volleyball team’s loss to Washington in NCAA Tournament does ‘not sum up’ the season

SEATTLE >> The destination does not always define the journey.

So although Saturday’s 71-minute loss to Washington in Alaska Airlines Arena punctuated the University of Hawaii women’s volleyball team’s 30-match season, the Rainbow Wahine returned to Honolulu on Sunday with an appreciation of the path they traversed over the last year.

“Definitely a journey,” UH coach Robyn Ah Mow said after the season finale. “And this game does not sum that up at all.”

The sweep by the host Huskies came a night after an undulating five-set battle with Mississippi State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, eight days after the Wahine clinched the Big West championship and just under a year after they learned the 2020 season had been canceled.

It was on Dec. 10, 2020, that the Big West announced fall sports competition would not be held for the athletic year, leaving UH among the women’s volleyball teams left to muddle through uncertainty and restrictions on practice.

All but two conferences — the Big West and Ivy League — proceeded with spring seasons, so, in a sense, the Rainbow Wahine were already playing catch-up when they opened camp in early August.

With a roster split evenly between returnees and newcomers, the team and coaching staff worked through a 3-5 start in a nonconference schedule that included five eventual NCAA Tournament participants. They were dealt another dose of adversity when promising freshman Annika de Goede suffered a season-ending injury in the bye week leading into the opening weekend of Big West play.

Despite the challenges, the Wahine re-established their place as the alpha team in the conference in winning their first eight Big West matches. The first of two losses to UC Santa Barbara tightened the race, but provided a jolt that helped power a nine-match winning streak to clinch the league title with a match to spare and secure the program’s 28th consecutive NCAA Tournament berth.

“It shows our resilience as a team,” senior middle blocker Skyler Williams said. “It’s really hard to stay motivated when your season gets canceled.

“I think from us working in the gym, finding new ways to figure out six-on-six when you can’t do that, staying positive, I think that just shows Wahine fight and finding other ways and I’m really proud of this team’s resilience and how far we came.”

The season will go into the books as 22-8 campaign with an 18-2 Big West mark and highlighted by the program’s 10th Big West title and Friday’s win over No. 23 Mississippi State. The second-round loss to Washington also closed a chapter for a senior class of Williams, outside hitter Brooke Van Sickle and defensive specialist Janelle Gong.

Williams and Gong joined the program in 2017 — Ah Mow’s first year as head coach — while Van Sickle played two seasons over three years after transferring from Oregon.

Ah Mow saw Van Sickle on the other side of the net when the Ducks visited Manoa for two matches in 2018. She heard from the incoming junior following the season when Van Sickle, initially a back-row player at Oregon, was seeking a fresh start.

“She said, ‘Coach can I come? I want to hit though,’” Ah Mow recalled.

Given the opportunity, Van Sickle powered her way into the lineup in 2019 and was a focal point for the UH attack for much of this season on her way to being named Big West Player of the Year last week. The 5-foot-9 senior closed her indoor career by averaging a team-high 3.73 kills per set and leading the Wahine with 38 aces and will be back for the beach volleyball season in the spring.

Her beach partner, sophomore Amber Igiede, finished with a team-high .388 hitting percentage while averaging 2.95 kills per set. She also put down 135 blocks and earned All-Big West honors along with Van Sickle, Williams and freshman setter Kate Lang.

Coming from Baton Rouge, La., Igiede said she’s been asked if she had considered attending an Southeastern Conference school. Instead, she helped the Wahine to two wins over SEC opponents this season in an early-season victory over Texas A&M and the tournament win over Mississippi State, the conference’s runner up.

“I always wanted to branch out to go somewhere farther,” Igiede said of her move west. “So I’m glad Hawaii is the perfect match for me.”

Igiede’s presence in the middle and Lang’s steadiness after taking over full-time setting duties at the start of the Big West season, are part of the foundation as Ah Mow and assistants Kaleo Baxter and Nick Castello begin building toward 2022. Sophomore Riley Wagoner established herself as a regular producer on the left side and freshman libero Tayli Ikenaga joined Igiede as the only players to see action in all 107 sets this season.

The opposite position rotated frequently with sophomores Braelyn Akana and Tiffany Westerberg and freshman Martyna Leoniak all starting at least seven matches. De Goede made two starts before her injury. Two more freshmen, middle blocker Anna Kiraly and outside hitter Mia Johnson, also saw playing time and junior setter Mylana Byrd opened the season as a starter.

The returnees will look to build on the lessons of this season while the seniors will take with them a perspective widened by their years in Manoa.

“I’m really proud of all the teammates I’ve had,” Williams said. “Growing not only as an athlete but as a person and the coaches bringing that out of me, I’ve grown as a student, as a human being and as a leader. So I’m really grateful for my journey here. I don’t have any regrets about anything.”