Wahine sweep Bakersfield, give Byrd lift during senior night

Hawaii middle blocker Amber Igiede put down her 16th kill to close out a quick sweep of Cal State Bakersfield and the Rainbow Wahine gave setter Mylana Byrd a lift to begin today’s senior night festivities.

The Rainbow Wahine hit .307 while holding the visiting Roadrunners to negative-.050, taking 80 minutes to finish off the 25-13, 25-10, 25-12 sweep before a crowd of 5,386 in UH’s home finale at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

After Igiede’s final kill, the team started the celebration by carrying Byrd, the team’s lone senior. Byrd, who transferred to UH from Alabama as a junior, saw playing time in all three sets in relief of Kate Lang and was honored in the traditional postmatch ceremony, greeted on the court with her family from Texas.

Igiede didn’t commit an error in her 27 attacks to hit .593 and added six blocks and two aces. Outside hitter Riley Wagoner contributed 11 kills and 10 digs and libero Tayli Ikenaga led the UH defense with 13 digs. In all the Wahine popped up 51 digs to go along with 10 blocks.

With the win, the Rainbow Wahine (20-6, 17-1 Big West) clinched at least a tie for first place in the conference race going into the final week of the regular season. UH heads on the road to take on second-place UC Santa Barbara on Friday and closes the schedule at Cal State Northridge on Saturday. A split of the road trip would give UH its third straight Big West title outright and the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

UH jumped out to an 11-2 lead in the first set before CSUB put together an 8-1 run. UH led 16-12 when Kendra Ham went on an eight-point service turn that included two kills and a block from Igiede and three kills from Wagoner. Byrd entered the match to a rousing ovation with UH up 22-12 and Ham closed out the set with a kill out of the back row.

Wagoner served the final seven points of the second set with Igiede and Byrd teaming on back-to-back blocks to give UH a 2-0 lead in the match.

UH went on an 11-1 run in the third set to open up a 20-8 lead and cruised into the senior night ceremony.