HONOLULU — When LSU’s purple banner appeared in the digital bracket of the NCAA volleyball tournament selection show, there was a murmur from the front row of Hawaii’s watch party at the Wong Hospitality Suite in the Stan Sheriff Center.

Amber Igiede, a native of Baton Rouge, La., seemed to sense something was coming. When the green “H” banner, with a No. 8 seed affixed to it in the Stanford quadrant, was suddenly displayed next to LSU’s, the Hawaii middle leaped off the couch and raised her fists the highest among a throng of cheering teammates.

 

What You Need To Know

  • The Hawaii women's volleyball team was assigned a No. 8 seed in the Stanford quadrant of the upcoming NCAA volleyball tournament and will face LSU of the Southeastern Conference in the first round Friday

  • UH has reached 40 NCAA tournaments and 29 straight, not including the canceled 2020 season

  • Rainbow Wahine middle Amber Igiede is a Louisiana native and grew up 20 minutes away from the LSU campus

  • Stanford, a possible second-round opponent, is the No. 2 overall seed in the 64-team bracket

“I don’t know if I spoke it into existence, but I literally said, ‘we’re going to play LSU.’ And it came up,” Igiede said afterward. “Everyone was like, ‘how’d you know that?’ I don’t know. But it just popped up. That was crazy.”

UH (22-6) and LSU (15-13) will play at Stanford’s Maples Pavilion at 2:30 Hawaii time.

The UH junior, a Big West Player of the Year contender, grew up as a Tigers fan 20 minutes away from campus and attended volleyball camps there as a youth.

LSU was the seventh-place team in the SEC at 9-9 in the conference. It dropped the last two regular-season matches at home in straight sets to Georgia.

Igiede was not very familiar with this year’s Tigers. They are led by Sanaa Dotson, a 6-foot senior hitter who averages 4.11 points and 3.67 kills per set. Anita Anwusi, a 6-3 middle, is the team’s top blocker at 0.8 per set.

The top eight teams were seeded in each 16-team quadrant.

UH, which has won 12 straight matches, received an automatic berth by virtue of its outright Big West championship, marking the school’s 40th overall NCAA tournament, and 29th straight, not including the 2020 season that was canceled by the Big West amid the early days of the pandemic. UH was the only Big West team selected.

The Wahine locked it up with a comeback five-set win at runner-up UC Santa Barbara on Friday.

“I think that was a really big win for us,” junior hitter Riley Wagoner said. “It’s testing our mental game and just pushing us (at the) end of the season. That’s a big thing going into the tournament, to keep those things rolling … into the first couple of rounds.”

 

Hawaii players reacted as LSU was revealed as their first-round NCAA opponent. (Spectrum News/Brian McInnis)

 

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.