Rainbow Wahine volleyball standouts Riley Wagoner, Cayden Alexander earn Big West honors

Hawaii outside hitters claimed half of the Big West’s weekly women’s volleyball awards.

Rainbow Wahine junior Riley Wagoner was named the conference’s Offensive Player of the Week on Monday and Caylen Alexander earned her third straight Freshman of the Week honor.

Wagoner hit a combined .313 while averaging five kills per set in UH’s home wins over UC Irvine on Friday and UC San Diego on Saturday. The 6-footer from Ohio opened the weekend with 10 kills with one error in UH’s sweep of UCI. She then set career highs with 25 kills on 51 attempts in a .314 hitting performance to help the Wahine grind out a four-set win over UCSD.

Wagoner has posted double-figure kill totals in each of UH’s last eight matches and is averaging 4.25 kills per set in Big West matches, good for second in the conference, on .302 hitting.

Alexander picked up her fourth Big West award of the season following her third double-double of the season. After a seven-kill night against UC Irvine, Alexander put away 16 kills and set a season high with 14 digs against UCSD. She also had a service ace in each match to raise her team-leading total to 19.

The first-place Rainbow Wahine (9-5, 7-0 BWC) rose four spots to No. 37 in the NCAA RPI and head back on the road to face Cal State Bakersfield (5-13, 2-4) on Friday and second-place Cal Poly (8-8, 5-1) on Saturday.