UH volleyball enters postseason at No. 1 | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

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Hawaii retained the top spot in the NVA/AVCA Men’s National Collegiate Coaches Poll before embarking on its quest for a repeat title in this week’s Big West tournament in Irvine, Calif.

The Rainbow Warriors (26-2, 9-1 Big West) received 15 of 22 first-place votes to remain at No. 1 for the 15th time in this season’s 16 polls. They swept a two-match series with UC San Diego to close the regular season and clinched a share of the Big West regular-season title and the top seed in the conference tournament, which opens Thursday at the Bren Events Center.

The tournament will feature three of the top five teams in the AVCA poll and UH will face UC Santa Barbara or UCSD in a semifinal match on Friday at 2 p.m. Fourth-ranked and second-seeded Long Beach State (20-3, 9-1) will face No. 5 UC Irvine or Cal State Northridge in Friday’s second semifinal.

UCLA (27-2) received the remaining five first-place votes to remain at No. 2 in the AVCA poll, followed by Penn State (24-3).

Martinez earns repeat softball honor

Hawaii catcher Izabella Martinez earned a place in Rainbow Wahine softball history by repeating as the Big West Field Player of the Week on Monday.

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The sophomore is the first Rainbow Wahine player to earn back-to-back conference field player of the week awards in the program’s 39-year history. She went 6-for-10 with four home runs and drove in eight runs in UH’s series win against UC Riverside last weekend at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium.

She homered in all three games, including a game-tying shot in the bottom of the seventh inning in UH’s eventual 6-5 win in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader. She homered again in the second inning of the series finale and hit her first career grand slam in the fifth.

Martinez leads UH with a .393 batting average and is 13-for-20 (.650) with five homers and 10 RBIs over the past six games.

UH (26-15, 9-6) opens a three-game series at CSU Bakersfield (6-32, 1-14) on Friday. The Wahine are alone in fifth place in the conference standings, two games behind co-leaders Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State.