Another road test was passed for the Hawaii women’s volleyball team, with only two weeks remaining in the Big West Conference season.
UH swept UC Irvine, 25-23, 25-13, 25-20 on Saturday afternoon at the Bren Events Center behind 14 kills from middle Amber Igiede and 13 from hitter Riley Wagoner.
The Rainbow Wahine (18-6, 15-1 Big West) won their eighth straight match, including four straight via the sweep. They hit .222 against the defensive-minded, pink-clad Anteaters (16-10, 9-7), who hit just .090.
Hawaii now heads home for senior week against Cal Poly (15-11, 12-4) — the only team to beat UH in conference — on Friday and Cal State Bakersfield (7-21, 4-12) on Sunday.
UH turned around effectively from a sweep of UC San Diego on Friday, while UCI had an extra day to prepare after sweeping UCSD on Thursday.
The Wahine had to scrap to keep their sweep streak intact, surviving a rough first set in which they hit just .008. Irvine led 23-22 but the Anteaters committed two errors and UH got a kill from Wagoner to notch the last three points.
UH bounced back to hit .440 in a wire-to-wire Set 2 and came from behind to take Set 3 after falling behind by three on three occasions. After it was tied at 18, UH went on a 7-2 run to end it, during which Igiede and Wagoner combined for six kills. On match point, a Wagoner swing was initially ruled to have hit the antenna before the UCI block, but UH coach Robyn Ah Mow successfully challenged that the ball hit off the block first, and UH won in walk-off fashion.
Libero Tayli Ikenaga dug 16 balls, Igiede was in on six blocks and Wagoner four stuffs.
Onye Ofoegbu led the Anteaters with 11 kills on .227 hitting.