Amber Igiede entered spring practice eager to take a lot of repetitions in the middle of the Hawaii attack.

The rising junior certainly got a workout in the Rainbow Wahine volleyball team’s spring exhibition match with Pepperdine on Friday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

With the Rainbow Wahine roster limited to one middle blocker, Igiede spent the entire match in the front row and put away 31 kills in 52 swings for a .500 hitting percentage in a spirited match with the Waves before a crowd of 1,035.

“It wasn’t as tiring as I thought it was going to be,” Igiede said. “It was learning the whole time and good communication between me and the setters.”

The teams agreed to play four sets regardless of the outcome of the first three and Pepperdine capped its spring trip with a 25-23, 18-25, 25-20, 26-24 win.

Pepperdine outside hitter Rachel Ahrens, a 6-foot-4 senior, led the Waves with 20 kills and Grace Chillingworth added 16 kills.

The Waves served up 13 aces against a UH lineup without its primary passers from last season in outside hitters Brooke Van Sickle and Riley Wagoner. Van Sickle completed her indoor career in the fall and both are playing for the UH beach volleyball team this spring.

“I told (the Wahine) we have to do a lot of serve-pass, ball control and defense,” UH coach Robyn Ah Mow said. “For the most part I felt it went OK.”

Igiede, setter Kate Lang and libero Tayli Ikenaga returned to the starting lineup off last year’s team that won the Big West championship and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Lang had 31 assists and served up four aces while sharing time with Mylana Byrd, who had 19 assists and two kills.

UH outside hitter Mia Johnson finished with 11 kills and Braelyn Akana added six. Annika de Goede started the match at opposite in her first playing time since suffering a season-ending injury early in the fall and Ilayda Demirtas made her debut after redshirting in the fall. Ikenaga led the UH defense with 13 digs.

“I am so proud of this team,” said Lang, an All-Big West selection as a freshman last season. “We have grown so much within the last five weeks. … We were making eye contact and being a team as one unit, winning together and losing together.”

Lang also noted the growth Igiede has shown since spending five days playing in the USA Volleyball Open Program in Colorado Springs, Colo., last week.

The Wahine played without outside hitter Tiffany Westerberg and middle blocker Anna Kiraly, leaving Igiede as the only available middle. Ah Mow said the UH coaches are working on adding another middle to the roster before next season.

The Wahine will have another week of full practices this spring to address the issues that arose in the match and Ah Mow said another benefit of the exhibition was giving some of the players who spent most of last season on the bench a chance to play in front of a crowd.

“The value (was) them playing somebody else, in this arena, in this environment, to see how they’re going to feel,” Ah Mow said.

Pepperdine coach Scott Wong, a former UH associate coach, also appreciated the turnout for the exhibition in his return to Hawaii. The Waves also played an exhibition with Chaminade on Tuesday.

“It’s the best, we can’t script this,” Wong said. “We wanted to play in big arenas and different environments.

“It’s been a dream and we started thinking about (making the trip) in November and I feel like a few miracles happened for us to be here.”