Hawaii women’s volleyball: AVCA All-Region: Robyn Ah Mow Coach of Year, Norene Iosia first team
Congratulations to Robyn Ah Mow, today named Pacific North Region Coach of the Year.
Norene Iosia was named to the first team, while Hanna Hellvig and Amber Igieda were honorable mention.
Tough region for Hawaii. includes Pac-12 North with Stanford and Washington.
For the complete release click here.
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The awards for the Hawaii women’s volleyball team continue to pile up.
Today, Robyn Ah Mow was named the AVCA Pacific North Region Coach of the Year and senior setter-hitter Norene Iosia was one of 14 players on the all-region first team.
The Rainbow Wahine also had two freshmen among the six named honorable mention in hitter Hanna Hellvig and middle Amber Igiede. Hawaii had no selections last year.
Ah Mow is in her third season as coach of her alma mater. The former Wahine All-American setter was named the Big West Coach of the Year earlier this season.
Hawaii is 26-3, the most wins since 2015, and has advanced to the NCAA tournament third round for the first time also since 2015. The Wahine also won the Big West title for the first time since 2016, the first under Ah Mow, when finishing 14-2.
No. 18 Hawaii faces No. 6 Nebraska (27-4) on Friday in the third round of the NCAA tournament in Madison, Wis.
Hellvig was the Big West Freshman of the Year. She and Igiede also were named first-team all-conference along with Iosia and to the conference all-freshmen team.
Hawaii is in the same region as Pac-12 North, West Coast North and Mountain West North teams. Pac-12 champion Stanford dominated the all-region picks with four first-team selections and runner-up Washington had two, as did Colorado State.
The Big West also had Cal Poly junior opposite Maia Dvoracek on the Pacific North first team and UC Santa Barbara senior hitter Lindsey Ruddins on the Pacific South first team for a third consecutive year.
Two players with Hawaii ties also were honored today. Freshman setter Lexis Akeo (Kamehameha) from Pitt was first-team East Coast and sophomore setter Jhenna Gabriel (Maryknoll) from Texas first-team Southwest.
First-team selections are eligible for All-America and regional coaches are considered for national coach of the year.
Hanna Hellvig and Amber Igieda are future All Americans. I see Amber moving to OH next season.
1. Based on Amber’s play this year, yeah, OH seems like a real possibility for her, especially if that Hungarian MB works out.
Congratulations, Coach, Norene, Amber,Hannah! Well deserved. You make Hawaii proud.
Wow, both Nebraska and Wisconsin have so many first-team entries here, four each! Hawaii has only one first team entry and two honorable entries. Wisconsin also has regional player of the year as well. It will be tough to beat either team on the road. The Wahines will need to work their Rainbow magic here.
1. Don’t think a move for Igiede is under consideration. but what you may see are more step-outs a la Angelica Ljungqvist
Braelyn Akana likely will train outside in spring. Tiffany Westerberg on the outside another option.
4. as mentioned, Hawaii in same region as Pac-12 North. has had to go up against Stanford and Washington every season. it is odd that UH isn’t in the Pacific South only because of geography and that the NCAA splits UCSB and Cal Poly South and North
Good news for the Big West too. Maia Dvoracek (Poly–Pacific North Region) and Lindsey Ruddins (UCSB–Pacific South Region) also made all-region, while Tallulah Froley (UCSB–Pac South) was honorable mention.
San Diego had two all-region pac south (Jacobson, Newsome) honorees while Frohling was HM and Freshman of the year for the pac south. UH beat a very good USD team, so I hope more folks start to believe this team is real and have a good shot at beating Nebraska.
UH’s scheduling was full of quality this year–more support from the all-region selections. For regular season only (exclude No. Colorado, which had one all-region, one HM), UH played against 15 all-region selections, 5 HMs, 2 POYs, 1 FOY, and 1 COY. 9 UH opponents this year had honorees. Every one of UH’s four pre-season tournaments featured at least one team with a regional honoree, and all teams in the Haw’n Airlines Classic and Baylor Tournament had honorees today. Honorees from UH’s opponents came from 6 of the 10 regions, so good regional scheduling as well.
As I have mentioned before, per the new AVCA rules, if a student-athlete has been chosen as its conference’s POY AND awarded a place on an All-Region team, she is automatically an All-American (Honorable Mention) and presumably could be named to the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd AA team. Thus, congrats to Noreen Iosia for being named a 2019 All-American.
Any player named a 2019 D1 All-Regional Honorable Mention can be considered for selection to the All-America Honorable Mention list but not for the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd team.
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Cindy, can you tell me what’s going on with the EAST COAST REGION? Georgia Tech (ACC) has 4 (yes 4!) members named to the First Team, yet the Yellow Jackets are not even In the NCAA D1 Women’s Volleyball Championship tournament. Am I wrong? As far as I know, Georgia Tech continue postseason play today, Tuesday, Dec. 10 when they host Liberty in the quarterfinal of the NIVC!
Congratulation to all!
Wahine play Nebraska, then Texas A&M/Wisconsin winner. Do they then stay on in continental USA and end up in Pittsburgh or do they fly back to Hawaii then fly back to Pittsburg?
If they stay up there, do they travel by air or train/bus?
Honors for multiple freshmen from your squad means the you recruited well last year. Robyn and her team of coaches should also feel good about how they reloaded the team in one really good recruiting year. That’s not easy to do.
Congratulations to Coach, Norene, Hanna, and Amber for the recognition.
Torres from Iolani/Utah was also 1st team Pacific South.
Also Siani Yamaguchi, Kalaheo/Winthrop, South Region.
congrats to Robyn and Norene and Hanna, well done and deserved. If they can get a good setter, they should contend again next year. the men should be good as well.
(For some reason what I wrote didn’t post, so I’ll try again.)
Per the new AVCA rules, if a student-athlete wins her conference’s POY award AND is named All-Regional she is automatically AVCA All-America Honorable Mention and is eligible for First, Second, or Third Team consideration. Thus, Norene Iosia is officially an AA.
Further, if a player is named All-Region Honorable Mention, she becomes eligible for All-America Honorable Mention. Well earned, Hannah and Amber!
Aside to Cindy: Check out the East Coast Region awards. I’ve never seen anything like it before! 4 of Georgia Tech’s players are named to the First Team.
Yet the Yellow Jackets, a bubble team, failed to win a bid/berth to the NCAA D1 Women’s Volleyball tournament and instead accepted the invite to the NIVC, where the Jackets continue postseason play right now (Tuesday, Dec. 10) as they host Liberty in the quarterfinal of the NIVC. Take that NCAA Volleyball Committee!
GO BOWS!
NCAA Volleyball picked one of those UNC/UH long rallies as their #1 play of the week:
https://twitter.com/NCAAVolleyball/status/1204438509370691586
Also, the NCAA Championships Hawaii v. San Diego highlight video is up on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fyVwxBE8wE
Nice to see the Rainbow Wahine getting some love from the NCAA before the regionals.
8. Couldn’t tell you. The awards are from the AVCA, not the NCAA
9. IF it happens, Team would fly to Pittsburgh courtesy of NCAA travel. Not sure how long they’d stay in Madison before moving to final four site.
14. and they had to bleep out one of Ah Mow’s less than family friendly comments ‘-)
16. I heard a Robyn “family unfriendly” utterance at during the post-game interview after the San Diego match. Caught me by surprise and was really funny.
Good thing that the FCC has no jurisdiction over Spectrum Sports, so no fines are coming.
For some reason, Ah Mow’s cussing comes across as her just being genuine.
Great job this past weekend ladies, congratulations to all we!l deserved.
Does anyone know how or where to find the recruiting class rankings for this class? All my searches end up at the NCAA or AVCA rankings.
AVCA got it right. Big West Co-coach of the Year, really. Congrats Robyn, Rene, Hanna and Amber!
Although anchorman, Ryan, as usual spit the curse of ‘reverse sweep by San Diego’, wahine coaching staff managed to overcome it by executing another option of planned strategy during third game (once SD briefly took the lead). Be focus solely on all plausible strategy options to pass B2B hurdle rather trapping into recognition distractions…Both opponents are higher ranked (not by mistake but because their staff are excellent in counteracting chess/strategy moves. Wahine staff needs to keep up with them to repeat super team effort for two day marathon without getting cramps in mid of the run…Good move to use 6’3”Amber’s in full rotation who could intercept high off roof fly…IMO, Jolie needs to contribute more now being in starting lineup against higher rank opponents, and also IMO, #20, BVS and Norene, (crafty weaponry) become more effective as later phases of match…So far, RAM-ANG staff has done a marvelous job, keep up good work for two more weeks!
Good to see JR back in time for the tournament. Friday is championship day!
Coach Shoji out here keeping it real
https://twitter.com/DaveShoji/status/1204662934627999745
😂
17. think it caught Spectrum by surprise. It was bleeped out on the replay. She is nothing if not genuine.
She was a little embarrassed about it on Monday during our interviews.