Trail ends in Oregon for Hawaii women’s volleyball

When the Hawaii women’s volleyball team left for the mainland two days after senior night, only one more match was a given.

The Rainbow Wahine turned it into four, reaching the second round of the NCAA Tournament before falling to host Oregon in straight sets, 25-23, 25-12, 25-17, on Friday night at Matthew Knight Arena.

The No. 2-seeded Ducks, who have real national championship aspirations, swept Hawaii for the second time this season to advance to a regional semifinal next week in Madison, Wis.

Hawaii, which saw a seven-match winning streak end, closed its season at 24-9 with its second second-round NCAA exit in three years.

UH made the NCAA Tournament for the 30th consecutive season and advanced past the first round for the third time in six tries under head coach Robyn Ah Mow.

“Hopefully they go and take it all so we lost to the winners,” Ah Mow said of the Ducks (28-5).

Oregon held Hawaii to a season-low.061 hitting percentage and just 31 kills in three sets. Defensively, Hawaii stayed in it scrambling for 50 digs, with junior Tayli Ikenaga seemingly everywhere with a match-high 17 digs.

Caylen Alexander finished with a team-high 13 kills and 10 digs and Riley Wagoner added six kills. No other Rainbow Wahine had more than four as Oregon keyed in on middles Amber Igiede and Kennedi Evans, who combined for six kills in 29 swings.

Igiede had four kills in only 11 attempts in her final match wearing a UH uniform.

“It’s not often that we try to front middles, but Amber for sure is somebody that we wanted to do that with,” Oregon coach Matt Ulmer said. “I thought we served well enough that that took most of (Igiede’s) game out because the pass was off the net. I didn’t feel like she had many easy opportunities. She had to work for everything, and that’s all you can do.”

Hawaii, which had won 18 of its previous 20 sets entering the match, missed a huge opportunity to take an early lead and put a scare in the home team in the first set.

Back-to-back hitting errors by Mimi Colyer around a Wagoner block prompted Oregon to use the first timeout of the match trailing 10-4.

The Ducks used their second timeout after an Alexander kill followed by an ace put UH ahead 18-11.

The Ducks fells behind 19-12 before scoring 13 of the final 17 points. The match was tied at 22-all and then again at 23-23 when UH’s eighth hitting error and a Karson Bacon kill on a close play at the net gave Oregon the set.

“I think we were passing pretty good, and then I think just the conversion of us passing, we’re defending balls and we can’t convert,” Ah Mow said. “Not converting balls kind of led to a passing breakdown.”

Hawaii continued to scrap on defense, rolling up 37 digs through the first two sets.

It was a challenge offensively as the Rainbow Wahine hit minus-.143 in the second set and never led in losing by double digits.

A Wagoner kill pulled Hawaii to 18-15 in the third set before Oregon closed it out on a 7-2 run.

Oregon finished with eight blocks that led to 24 Hawaii hitting errors.

“I don’t think Oregon is a tough team to hit against. I just think it comes down to our side,” Alexander said. “Like are we delivering the ball out all the way or not. Stuff like that.”

Five healthy seniors all played their final match of their careers.

Igiede and Wagoner closed out their careers as fifth-year seniors who won four conference championships and four matches in the NCAA Tournament, reaching a regional semifinal in 2019.

“I think I’m just super proud of the team,” Wagoner said fighting back tears. “Looking back on the last couple of games the Big West was a really big achievement for us and just kind of finishing strong in our play. Today didn’t work out how we wanted to, obviously, but I still think we finished pretty strong.”

Igiede had one solo block to finish her career tied for third on the school’s all-time list with Angelica Ljungquist, who coached Igiede her freshman season.

She also ends her career 12th all-time with 1, 371 kills and fourth in total blocks and fifth in block assists.