Beach wash away Rainbow Wahine in Big West volleyball

The Hawaii women’s volleyball team had a couple of streaks come to an unfortunate end Friday at Long Beach State.

The Rainbow Wahine were outplayed late in each set in a 25-22, 26-24, 25-21 loss to the Beach at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach, Calif.

“Hawaii volleyball is about being scrappy, playing defense and converting. (The Beach) made stronger moves and finished plays,” Hawaii middle blocker Amber Igiede said.

Hawaii had its 11-match winning streak against Long Beach State come to an end, with the Beach’s previous win in the series coming in 2016. It also was Long Beach State’s first sweep of Hawaii since 1997.

Hawaii (9-5, 2-1 Big West) had won four in a row overall, all sweeps.

Igiede led the Rainbow Wahine with 13 kills, while Riley Wagoner and reserve Paula Guersching each added six. Kate Lang finished with 30 assists and 11 digs.

The Rainbow Wahine hit .157 for the match, while the Beach hit .180 in a match with plenty of long rallies.

“Long Beach State’s defense, they kept a lot of balls up,” Igiede said. “That’s how they came out on top tonight. We didn’t dig and convert a lot of balls.”

Abby Karich had 13 kills and left-hander Natalie Glenn finished with 11 kills and three aces for Long Beach State (9-5, 3-1). Zayna Meyer dished out 32 assists.

Hawaii was within 21-20 in the first set, had a set point in the second and rallied to get within 20-19 in third.

Hawaii took a 5-1 lead in the opening set, but Long Beach State rallied to take a 9-8 advantage. The Beach later scored four in a row to go up 20-17. The Rainbow Wahine got within 21-20 on Igiede’s solo block, but a service error and a hitting error by Hawaii put Long Beach State up three. The set ended on a service error by Lang.

In the second set, the Rainbow Wahine had four blocks in taking a 15-10 advantage. The Beach responded by scoring four in a row, including two aces by Glenn, to get back in it. Long Beach State led 23-21 before Hawaii scored three in row to reach set point. Igiede had a kill and an ace, and Kennedi Evans had a solo block during the Hawaii rally. The Beach closed out the set on Katie Kennedy’s kill and a pair of hitting errors by Caylen Alexander.

“It did (take a lot out of the team),” Igiede said. “Energy wasn’t the highest tonight, but we’ll figure this out.”

The Rainbow Wahine fell behind 4-0 in the third set, which prompted Hawaii coach Robyn Ah Mow to remove Lang in favor of Jackie Matias, a freshman from Punahou. Tali Hakas also entered the match for the first time. With Hawaii down 7-3, Guersching entered for the first time. The Rainbow Wahine trailed 10-3, won a point, and then Lang, who has won all five Big West Setter of the Week honors this season, re-entered. The Wahine scored the next three points to pull within 10-7 .

Hawaii tied it at 15-15 on a double-block by Evans and Lang, then took the lead on Guersching’s kill.

Guersching didn’t have an error on 12 swings.

“It was good. The subs did well and they came in with a lot of energy,” Igeide said. “We caught fire after that.”

Long Beach State later scored three consecutive points to go up 23-19. The matched ended when Igiede was roofed by Glenn and Kameron Bacon.

“We’re going to assess it and make it better and learn from this loss,” Igeide said.

Hawaii will conclude its road trip with a match today against UC San Diego.