Hawaii BeachBows top pair Kaylee Glagau and Brooke Van Sickle were named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association 2023 Beach Volleyball All-American first team, the AVCA announced Thursday.

Glagau and Van Sickle also earned first-team honors last year. They joined four other Rainbow Wahine (Katie Spiegler, Brittany Tiegs, Nikki Taylor, Emily Maglio) to earn multiple All-America selections, and the first to earn repeat honors as a pair.

They followed up on a 30-win 2022 campaign with a 29-3 run this season while playing all but three matches at the top of the order. Glagau and Van Sickle’s 59 career wins together are the most by any BeachBows pair. The pair won 16 straight matches at one point this season, and scored the clinching point in eight of the BeachBows’ five-set wins this year. They have also taken down pairs from Top 5 teams UCLA, Florida State and LSU. Glagau and Van Sickle were rewarded for their excellent season with the Big West Pair of the Year award, the first repeat winner of that award in conference history.

Glagau, Van Sickle, and the BeachBows are in Gulf Shores, Ala., where they will take on sixth-seeded Loyola Marymount today to open the 2023 NCAA Championships. The round-of-16 matchup is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. and will air on ESPNU and streamed online on ESPN+.

UH tennis players earn conference honors

Nine Hawaii tennis players earned conference accolades on Thursday, with four men’s players and five women’s players earning All-Big West selections.

Andre Ilagan earned a pair of first-team selections — as a singles player and alongside doubles partner Lucas Labrunie. Axel Labrunie was named to the second team while also earning honorable mention with doubles partner Killian Maitre.

On the women’s side, Nikola Homolkova and Ana Vilcek each earned first-team honors in singles while earning doubles honorable mention alongside Klara Novakova and Rita Pinto. Satsuki Takamura was named to the second team in singles.

Additionally, Rainbow Wahine coach Jun Hernandez was voted the conference’s Coach of the Year for the third time. He won back-t0-back Coach of the Year awards in 2017 and 2018. He led UH to a 14-7 overall record and a league-best 8-1 conference record this season.

Ilagan became the first Hawaii player and just the seventh men’s tennis player to be named to the All-Big West first team for all four years. He is the second player in program history to earn first-team all-conference honors during their career, joining Dennis Lajola, who completed the feat in the WAC. Ilagan and Lucas Labrunie have earned three All-Big West honors, with an honorable mention in 2019 and first-team honors in 2021 and this year.

Younger Labrunie brother Axel earned second-team honors after getting honorable mention last season. He tallied an overall record of 8-7, 2-2 in the conference. He won three of his last four decisions. He and Maitre joined forces to earn honorable mention in doubles, the third straight doubles honorable mention for Labrunie and the first postseason honor for Maitre.

Homolkova earned her second All-Big West first-team selection and first as a Rainbow Wahine. The Long Beach State transfer finished with a 10-8 overall record and 7-1 conference record in her first year at UH. Vilcek, her doubles partner, finished with a 14-5 overall, 6-2 in the conference, with 10 wins at No. 1 to earn her first first-team selection. Vilcek was an honorable mention last year.

As a duo, Homolkova and Vilcek went 8-4 to join Novakova and Pinto (7-7) as doubles honorable mentions.

Takamura won 10 of her last 11 matches during a team-best 15-5 campaign. She went 8-1 in conference play, and was named to the second team after honorable mentions in both 2021 and 2022.