LONG BEACH Calif. >> A few minutes into Hawaii’s post-match press conference inside of Walter Pyramid on Saturday, the Big West championship trophy was brought in and put down just to the right of Amber Igiede.
It was the exact right place to put it. The four-time All-Big West first-team middle blocker made sure a conference championship and an NCAA Tournament berth were at the end of every season she played for the Rainbow Wahine.
Igiede was named the Most Outstanding Player in the Outrigger Big West Women’s Volleyball Championships after hitting .490 with 28 kills and seven blocks in sweeps of Cal Poly and Long Beach State this weekend to win the conference’s first tournament in 25 years.
Winning is all Igiede has done since coming to Hawaii from Baton Rouge, La., in 2019. Of her four seasons, there might not have been a tougher one than this.
Igiede is the focal point of every opposing team’s game plan. She wasn’t named the Big West Player of the Year after winning it last year, but she’s walking away with another trip to the NCAA Tournament that three weeks ago looked like it may not be the case as Hawaii suffered consecutive home losses in conference play for the first time in 30 years.
“I think adversity. I think Hawaii in general, we’re always undersized, we have to be great at defense, and this year a lot of people counted us out because we had a couple of losses early,” Igiede said. “When you think about it in practice, we always worry about our side no matter what their tempo is, no matter what their side looks like. Worrying about our side and cleaning it is up is exactly what we did, and this year I think that is the key.”
While this season will be defined by what happened the past two nights in the Pyramid, it really began a week ago, when Hawaii trailed Long Beach State 18-8 in the first set with a first-round bye in the tournament on the line.
>> RELATED: Hawaii blasts Long Beach State to earn Big West title, NCAA berth
Igiede had four kills, including the one that started a 10-0 run, to help lead UH to an incredible comeback in the set.
Igiede finished the match with 21 kills to lead UH to a win that allowed it not to have to play again until Friday. The three days of full practices before Friday’s semifinal allowed UH to refuel and recharge and play to the best of its capabilities.
“I give it all to my teammates and my coaches,” Igiede said. “I think a great setter like (Kate Lang) gets (hitters) one-on-ones, and that’s what she did. She takes risks in the middle and it makes me so happy.”
Igiede immediately credited others, but it was the opposing coach on both senior night and in the tourney finale that had the highest praise.
“I told Robyn last year, first time we played them, I said Amber is going to go straight to the national team and be on the roster,” Long Beach State coach Tyler Hildebrand said. “Not that Amber had a bad year — she was great — but she wasn’t the same Amber throughout the year. But oh boy, the last two times we played them, she was that Amber. She’s a stud. There was something about her senior night it seemed that when we were up (18-8), she brought some kind of fight that felt like lifted the team and the crowd and, man, the last three matches she’s been (great).”
