Robyn Ah Mow doesn’t shy away from holding her Hawaii women’s volleyball team to a high standard.
After watching the Rainbow Wahine notch their fourth consecutive sweep with a 25-16, 25-18, 25-19 win over Cal State Bakersfield on Saturday, Ah Mow thought about it for a second and admitted as much, calling her team’s performance “not bad.”
“Maybe I just have high standards,” she continued.
After seeing Big West-leading UC Santa Barbara, which began the week ranked No. 25 in the AVCA rankings, lose in four to UC Irvine on Friday, Ah Mow also knew her team caught a break.
Hawaii (17-6, 10-2) returns home for two matches against Cal Poly on Friday and the Gauchos on Saturday with a chance to climb back into at least a tie for first place with two wins.
“We’re coming home with two wins. That’s the main thing,” Ah Mow said. “We’ve still got to be better. We just can’t have lapses on this and that during the match.”
Amber Igiede led the way with a match-high 16 kills and Kennedi Evans and Riley Wagoner added seven for UH against the Roadrunners (6-18, 2-10) at The Icardo Center in Bakersfield, Calif.
Hawaii opened the match hitting .189 in a shaky first set but finished its fourth straight match hitting better than .300 after clobbering 21 kills and hitting .486 in the final set.
The match was closer than the score at times, as CSU Bakersfield played Hawaii tough and had the second set tied at 16-all when Ah Mow brought in setter Jackie Matias and senior hitter Kendra Ham.
UH ran off the next four points, with Ham and Igiede getting a kill and Igiede in on one of Hawaii’s six blocks with Wagoner.
CSU Bakersfield cut it to 20-18 on a Hawaii hitting error before the Rainbow Wahine scored the next five points to end it with five players each recording a kill.
All but four of Hawaii’s points in the third set came off swings as Ah Mow was able to empty the bench.
Freshman Stella Adeyemi put down all three of her attempts and Ham finished with four kills in six attempts.
“We got a bunch of girls in and they looked like they played better after the start (of the match),” Ah Mow said.
Ah Mow said prior to the road trip that she was focused on trying to get UH to improve its block.
Hawaii had six blocks in each road match this week after not having more than that in each of its previous four matches.
“I think semi-better maybe,” Ah Mow said. “The girls are thinking about it. I think it’s a little bit better, but again, our blocking and our defensive part have got to work together.”
Wagoner led the way defensively with 10 digs and UH finished with five aces and three service errors.
Talia Edmonds, who took over as libero in the third set, had seven digs. Setter Kate Lang had a match-high 27 assists and Matias added 11 off the bench.
Igiede had two aces and two solo blocks.
