The Hawaii women’s volleyball team found another contender for the Mountain West Conference championship.
UC Davis established itself as the team with the biggest chance to knock off the first-place Rainbow Wahine by sweeping UH 25-15, 27-25, 25-20 on Saturday at University Credit Union Center in Davis, Calif.
Ally Chandler and Isabella Umpierre had 14 kills apiece to help the Aggies (12-11, 8-4) hand Hawaii its first loss in conference play.
The Rainbow Wahine (19-4 overall) dropped to 11-1 in the MWC — three matches ahead of UC Davis for first place with six remaining.
The Aggies won four sets in two matches against Hawaii, which had dropped only three sets in its first 10 conference matches.
“It turned out like the moment was a little bigger than it was and we just kind of got away from a lot of fundamentals that got us to this point,” Hawaii coach Joshua Walker said in a post-match phone interview. “Now it goes back to just refocusing on what actually is going to make the difference in matches.”
Chandler, who hit .520, had two blocks for UC Davis, which finished with six in the match.
Fellow middle blocker Demi Cole had four blocks and hit .625 with five kills in eight swings and no errors.
Hawaii middle blocker Miliana Sylvester had nine kills and hit .421 but managed only one block. Freshman Rachel Purser, the other starting middle, had three kills and one block.
Hawaii finished with four blocks total.
UC Davis hit .348 for the match, which is the highest hitting percentage Hawaii has allowed this season. The Rainbow Wahine had gone 16 consecutive matches holding opponents to a hitting percentage of less than .200.
The previous season high Hawaii allowed was .266 against San Diego in the final match of the season-opening tournament.
UC Davis has won three of the past four meetings against Hawaii.
“For us, now we’ve got a chance to be at home the next couple of weeks and continue to find ways to make us do better,” Walker said.
Cha’lei Reid led UH in kills for the eighth consecutive match with 10. Tali Hakas added eight kills and Maeli Cormier hit .375 with seven kills from the right side.
Victoria Leyva had a team-high 13 digs.
Sylvester had three early kills to help Hawaii jump out to a 7-2 lead in the first set, but the Aggies took over from there.
Chandler continued to stay hot with five kills in seven swings and the Aggies hit .349 with only two errors to score 23 of the final 31 points and take the set by double digits.
Hawaii surged to a 20-17 lead in the second set on a kill from Reid before the Aggies rattled off four straight points to go up by one.
Hawaii led 23-22 when Chandler was credited with a kill in the middle. During a discussion with the down referee, Hawaii was given a yellow card and then a red to give UC Davis set point.
Sylvester forced deuce with a kill and the set was tied at 25-all when Reid recorded back-to-back errors on balls off the net to put Hawaii in a 2-0 hole.
“They weren’t calling any of the throws and obviously that one was after a tough back and forth and they are not calling it,” Walker said. “It was not the first time, and we felt there were a lot of lifts that weren’t called. I was trying to understand why they weren’t calling it, but we weren’t getting an explanation.”
UC Davis closed out the third set on a 6-1 run to hand UH just its second sweep loss of the season.
Hawaii will return home for its final homestand of four matches beginning with Nevada on Thursday.
The Wolf Pack are in ninth place in the Mountain West standings at 3-9 (5-17 overall).
Hawaii finishes its home schedule with Air Force (8-15, 4-8) in two weeks before closing out the regular season at UTEP (15-9, 7-5).
“It’s November volleyball. Everybody is trying to fight for their lives,” Walker said.
