After pulling out two wins to start the season, Hawaii got a real taste of the competition it hopes to see again in December.
No. 9 Oregon lived up to its preseason Top 10 ranking, sweeping its way through the Hawaiian Airlines Rainbow Wahine Classic with a 25-21, 25-21, 25-15 win over Hawaii on Sunday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
Reigning AVCA Freshman of the Year Mimi Colyer had a match-high 17 kills and the Ducks doubled up the Rainbow Wahine in blocks 10-5 to slightly dampen an otherwise successful opening weekend for UH (2-1).
“For me, I’m not going to get down about this game,” Hawaii coach Robyn Ah Mow said. “The girls played great this tournament. Is that a good team out there? Definitely a good team. Definitely a bigger team than we’re going to see in the Big West.”
The size difference was evident the moment Oregon took the floor with two 6-foot-3 outside hitters and middle blockers who were 6-foot-4 and 6-foot-5.
A crowd of 4,600 brought the energy early on as Hawaii came out and kept it close, playing toe-to-toe with the Ducks in the opening set.
Hawaii led by as many as four and was tied with Oregon 20-20 before a hitting error and kills from Kara McGhee and Morgan Lewis put UO ahead 23-20.
Riley Wagoner got one back for UH with one of her three kills, but another UH hitting error and a kill from Karson Bacon ended the set.
Hawaii again hung tight with the Ducks in the second set but trailed 22-18 when Ah Mow brought in freshman setter Jackie Matias and outside hitter Paula Guersching, who both made their UH debuts.
Senior Amber Igiede had a solo block and two kills to keep UH in it, but a hitting error by the Rainbow Wahine ended the second set by the same score as the first.
“Just different,” Ah Mow said of the lineup change. “I think Jackie is a setter that will take chances and set the middle. She will try to set the middle, which I think we should have done a lot more.”
Senior Kendra Ham got her first action of the season in the the third set as the Ducks ran away with it at the end, closing the match with a 5-0 run.
“What we can take away from today is taking care of easy balls,” said sophomore Caylen Alexander, who led Hawaii with 10 kills in 26 swings. “We were definitely in a lot of the plays and then we just let easy balls fall.”
Alexander and Igiede were named to the all-tournament team. Igiede, who has been to the NCAA Tournament every season since she arrived in 2019, had seven kills and three blocks.
“I think for an opening tournament we did well,” Igiede said. “The first two games I thought we played really good volleyball. Some of the sets obviously we made some errors, and I think today, just the errors it came down to towards the end. They got us with a lot of speed and we made too many errors.”
Hawaii is halfway through a run of four consecutive games against opponents ranked in the opening Top 25.
UH will welcome No. 22 Southern California to the islands next for two matches next week. The Trojans went 1-2 over their opening weekend, losing to No. 19 Houston and No. 23 Rice.
“We can fix all of these things. The girls are going to have to be willing to go back to practice and dig deep,” Ah Mow said. “You’ve got to work for it. If you want to play big teams like this. It is what it is. That’s one big reason why we have to schedule harder teams is just to get that (experience).”
Northwestern 3, No. 13 San Diego 1
Julia Sangiacomo more than doubled the Toreros’ leading hitter with 21 kills as the Wildcats (1-2) sent nationally ranked San Diego (0-3) home without a win this weekend.
Ellee Stinson led Northwestern defensively with 18 digs and had three of the Wildcats’ five aces.
Nemo Beach and Leyla Blackwell had nine kills apiece for the Toreros.
NO. 9 OREGON DEF. HAWAII
25-21, 25-21, 25-15
Ducks (3-0)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Ferreira 3 0 0 0 .000 1 0 0.0
McClellan 3 0 0 0 .000 4 0 1.0
Gonzales 3 8 3 21 .238 8 3 11.5
Pukis 3 5 0 7 .714 10 2 7.0
Murphy 3 0 0 0 .000 13 0 0.0
Lewis 3 6 4 17 .118 0 1 6.5
Colyer 3 17 7 45 .222 3 1 19.5
McGhee 3 4 2 9 .222 1 5 8.5
Bacon 3 7 3 12 .333 1 2 8.0
Match 3 47 19 111 .252 41 14 62.0
RAINBOW WAHINE (2-1)
S K E ATT PCT D BA PTS
Igiede 3 7 3 17 .235 2 1 9.5
Matias 2 0 0 0 .000 1 0 0.0
Wagoner 3 3 1 21 .095 6 0 3.0
Guersching 2 0 1 3 -.333 0 0 0.0
Hakas 3 5 4 13 .077 5 0 5.0
Lang 3 0 0 1 .000 7 0 0.0
Evans 3 6 3 12 .250 0 1 7.5
Edmonds 3 0 0 0 .000 4 0 0.0
Ikenaga 3 0 0 0 .000 5 0 0.0
Alexander 3 10 6 26 .154 8 2 11.0
Ham 1 0 2 4 -.500 0 0 0.0
Match 3 31 20 97 .113 38 4 36.0
Key — s: games; k: kills; e: hitting errors; att: attempts; pct: hitting percentage; d: digs; ba: block assists; pts: points (kills plus blocks plus aces).
Service aces — Oregon 5 (Gonzales 2, Colyer, Pukis, McClellan). Hawaii none. Service errors — Oregon 6 (Colyer 3, Gonzales 2, Ferreira). Hawaii 3 (Alexander, Guersching, Edmonds). Assists — Oregon 43 (Pukis 37, Gonzales 2, Murphy 2, Ferreira, McClellan). Hawaii 30 (Lang 22, Matias 4, Igiede 2, Wagoner, Edmonds). Block solos — Oregon 3 (McGhee 2, Colyer). Hawaii 3 (Igiede 2, Evans). Ball handling errors — Oregon none. Hawaii none. Reception errors — Oregon none. Hawaii 5 (Wagoner 2, Alexander, Hakas, Edmonds).
T—1:37. A—5,824. Officials—Dickson Chun, Wayne Lee, Matthew Tsutsumi, Kerwin Stenstrom.
