Hawaii-UCLA recap
Victory No. 1,108 may have even been sweeter than Friday’s record breaker for Hawaii coach Dave Shoji. Not only did it come against No. 10 UCLA — in the 71st meeting of his program’s longest running series — it came in front of the 14tth sellout at the Stan Sheriff Center.
Behind the tournament’s most outstanding player Emily Hartong’s 15 kills and a raucous turnstile crowd of 9,664 (10,300 tickets), the ninth-ranked Rainbow Wahine dispatched No. 10 UCLA 25-18, 25-17, 25-18 to claim the championship of the 26th Hawaiian Airlines Classic for the 11th time.
Hawaii (5-1, 3-0 HAC) handed UCLA (5-1, 2-1) its first loss of the season while also extending its series lead to 37-34. The teams have met every year since the Wahine program’s inception in 1974.
Joining Hartong on the all-tournament team were Rainbow Wahine Ali Longo and Mita Uiato; Karsta Lowe and Kelly Reeves of UCLA; Nikki Hess from Santa Clara; and New Mexico State’s Lauren Loerch.
It took 86 minutes for Hawaii to snap a three-match losing skid against UCLA. It was the first sellout since the 2011 NCAA regional semifinal against USC; the first came in 1994 when the Wahine opened the arena against San Jose State.
Hartong had three of Hawaii’s five aces and eight of the team’s 32 digs. Longo finished with a match-high 11 digs and Kalei Adolpho was in on five stuffs as the Wahine outblocked the Bruins 9-7.
In tonight’s first match, Santa Clara secured third place with a 25-22, 17-25, 25-16, 27-25 win over New Mexico State.
Hawaii shut down Lowe, UCLA’s left-handed 6-foot-6 outside hitter. She finished with seven kills and five errors when hitting .100.
Kelly Reeves led the Bruins with eight kills.
SCU 3, NMSU 1: Sabrina Clayton put down 19 kills and Nikki Hess added 15 as the Broncos (3-3, 1-2 HAC) rallied past the Aggies (1-5, 0-3 HAC). Santa Clara had three players in double-figure digs, with Taylor Milton and Alyssa Anderson with 15 each.
Lauren Loerch had 10 kills and NMSU had three swings at forcing a fifth set (24-22, 24-23, 25-24) but couldn’t finish it. The Aggies ended up with a 14-7 edge in blocks.
What an awesome evening for Wahine volleyball!!! Emily was her usual awesome self and the Middles played so well tonight.
Sucked to be home sick but glad a friend used my tickets. Also thank you Cindy for your usual great job and especially for clarifying that I am not DEdicated Fan like Breaston and volley fan have accused me of. I got pretty upset with them.
It was a great win but I think UCLA will lose a lot in the Pac 10 this year, they are not very good.
I was surprised how ineffective Lowe was, great job of scouting by the coaches and the team completely shutting her down.
Very happy with the play of Emily and Mita today they came to play like senior captains should. Sarah Mendoza is a gem, so happy Tom Pestolesi sent her this way. Her serve is steady and tough and always gets UH’s points. Can’t wait to get Annie Mitchem next year hopefully, she seems to be doing very well at IVC so far.
Also Ashley Kastl coming in as a DS was a great move by Dave, and she provides more offense from the back row, she was bombing from back there.
Didn’t see Kastl as a DS; saw her replace Manu-Olevao in the passing oration. but guess it’s semantics. DSs don’t go in with the intent that they would be used as a 3-meter option.
I think Kastl does a good job digging. Her offence does help when Uiato decides to give Hartong a break. She wasn’t a top player from AZ for nothing
So happy to hear the Wahine swept UCLA tonight. Cindy, sorry but I don’t usually comment during the game as I like to watch and check the stats during that time. Plus I think you have a lot of commentors to help you out.
Well I saw her go in then Tai come back in after, What I meant is I like the idea of her playing backrow for Tai. She’s a much better backrow attacker than Tai.
6. don’t know if Kastl is better from the 3 meter than Manu-Olevao. That is such a tricky set. but Kastl has 2 years on Manu-Olevao who is still learning the collegiate game. Don’t forget she was supposed to redshirt last season and only was activated when Croson was suspended that first road trip.
Manu-Olevao will develop into a very good, if not great, player, by the time she is a senior.
At the moment, Kastl is a better passer and it’s a good sub.
Feel better WD
I think Tai Manu-Olevao sometimes goes into some type of mental funk, though not really serious. She will make a slew of receiving errors and often hits the balls into the net or into blocks when out-of-system sets come to her. Fortunately, she usually does recover and makes the plays afterward. For this reason, I think Shoji should seriously consider having Kastl move ahead of her in the depth chart. See if Kastl can be more consistent. But, Manu-Olevao will be a great player some day; coming off the bench may put less pressure on her.
Warrior Dave you can get off your high horse now, never directly, definitively said you were the “dimented fan.”
A few threads ago somebody asked if DF changed his name to yours based on your criticsms and I jokingly said yes since I know the rest of us know who DF really was at least with the former handles he’s used before. Given the authentication with your IP address used now with the new format, I know Cindy you werent the infamous “DF” as well.
Tai is much better than Kastl, as a hitter and player. Tonight was just a night where she just wasn’t doing well, and Kastl thankfully didn’t put on an error-prone show. It all worked well.
Olevao over all had an off night, but I am satisfied with her passing tonight. She’ll be up and running before we know it for next weekend. Would like to see Kastl more relax and consistent. Tonight was one of those for her. Great night.
Mahalo and good morning from D.C.
#12 Breaston, your comment may have been made jokingly but when your fans jump on your bandwagon, I take offense.
I have to go back to read my so called “negative criticisms”. If I find it I will be a man and come back to apologize. I don’t expect anything more from you.
Beauston,
I we t back to the beginning if this tournament. Couldn’t find any negative criticism under my name.
If you find any, please do me a favor and point it out to me. I would like this to be a learning experience for me.
If you can’t find anything, your turn to be a man and apologize. I’ll check back tomorrow.
So glad I decided to fight the traffic & my inertia & get to this snooze-you-lose match, which was over too soon!
It’s hard to believe the Wahine you’re seeing is a two-nonconference-weekends-into-the-season Wahine team. There’s been very few errors — especially setting and double-hit errors.
Longo deserves being on the All-Tournament team, and she is on track to being an All-American. (I think UH has had only one libero in history selected to one of the All-America teams or honorable mention.) I think Longo can hold her own against USC’s Natalie Hagglund, who is favored to win her third straight All-Pac-12 Libero of the Year award this year. As for Uiato, she has my vote for Big West Women’s Volleyball POW. (Yes, I like to spread the wealth around if I can.)
Go Bows!
11.Tai might be but she hasn’t really shown it much. The past two games she did not hit well at all, negative and hitting under .100 will not get it done.
I’m glad she has improved enough to play all around but she has a long way to go.
For next year I hope Greeley is ready to go and that the coaches pick up some outside transfers, not sure about Tai/Long/Passi on the outside. I’d keep Nikki on the right .
It looks like your doing a good job acting like “DF” to me.
WD no where near DF
anyway, my bad. it was the 15th sellout for the women’s volleyball program. I believe. I had listed it being the fifth. It tied 4 hours for being the highest attended 10,300.
Do think that Kastl is better off the bench, where she can watch the game and see what she needs to do.
Like her passing in the back row over Manu-Olevao’s at the moment.
both are threats from the 3-meter.
i think Kastl deserves to start. Tai hasn’t hit well yet, her passing is not very good and her serving is mediocre at best. she has a lot of things to improve on. she will be a junior next year and if she doesn’t want to come off the bench, she better start getting better. i can’t believe a talent like her has no serve whatsoever. if she is going to rely just on her hitting at her size, she is in for a rude awakening. the coaches need to start working on her game asap. Tai doesn’t seem to be playing with a lot of confidence. don’t mean to beat up on her, but this is what i see from her on the court. we need someone to replace Hartong, and Tai was supposed to be one of the candidates. right now, she’s not even close.
15. I don’t remember any UH libero getting All-America recognition. Highest honors I can remember was All-Region Honorable Mention, by Ashley Watanabe in 2005. I do think Melissa Villaroman or Hedder Ilustre could have earned AA honors if they weren’t playing with all-around players like Willoughby, Kahumoku and Duggins.