HONOLULU — A quick study of the box score of the Hawaii women’s volleyball season opener against Southern Methodist had a puzzling effect.
SMU out-dug, outhit and out-blocked the host team – the latter two categories by significant margins – and blitzed UH by a record margin in the first set of 2024 campaign.
How in the world did the Rainbow Wahine pull that one out?
“Fighting,” replied coach Robyn Ah Mow said after a 7-25, 25-23, 24-26, 25-21, 15-13 victory in front of a Friday night crowd of 4,857 (6,006 tickets issued). “That’s what it’s going to take for this team. They just gotta keep fighting, no matter what.”
Note: See below for more photos of the Hawaii-SMU match.
Junior hitter Caylen Alexander embodied the never-say-die effort after UH set a program record for fewest points in a set in the modern era of NCAA volleyball scoring. Alexander, coming off a hit-and-miss sophomore season, had a career night with 28 kills on 66 swings and dug 11 balls.
On match point, Alexander exploded from the back line to pummel a ball that the experienced Mustangs could not handle cleanly. It was not credited as a kill but the effect was the same, and UH’s old Western Athletic Conference opponent – now a newly minted member of the Atlantic Coast Conference – shuffled off the floor in a daze, having twice squandered a set lead.
The Georgia native did most of her damage firing bullets from the left pin. She had the most kills for a Wahine player since McKenna Granato collected 29 against UCLA in 2017.
“Caylen from last year to this year is just another level,” Ah Mow said. “The physicality she’s bringing, too, and all the skill. Every single skill level, she brought up. Every one. I’m glad she’s on our team.”
After a night that UH posted 40 attack errors and 60 total, hitting .090 and facing a blocks deficit of 16-5, senior setter Kate Lang could wear a smile.
UH missed an opportunity to take a 2-1 overall lead after hitting a ball into the net on set point in the third. It closed out the late points in Sets 4 and 5, though.
“This was a great opener for the season and really set the theme of how hard this team can work,” Lang said.
With UH playing its first match in the post-Amber Igiede era, and without several other key upperclassmen who exhausted their eligibility, Ah Mow had to plug in players either new to college volleyball or unused to a prominent role.
Defensive specialist Victoria Leyva, a true freshman from El Paso, Texas, entered off the bench in the lopsided first set and by the end of the night appeared to be a lineup staple. She registered 10 digs in support of senior libero Tayli Ikenaga, who had 12.
After the first set ended before many fans had even found their seats, Ah Mow gathered the team in the tunnel for an animated discussion.
“Anyone in the hallway can tell you, Coach Rob ripped us a new one,” Leyva said. “We all knew we needed to come back in and refocus."
“We knew it wasn’t pretty, but moving on into that second set we knew what we needed to work on, exactly where we needed to pick at so we could come back … and take it from them,” she added.
UH claimed five of the first six points of Set 2.
By the end of the night, Ah Mow was extending a fist bump to Leyva and lauding her for her improvement from the spring as an early enrollee. Ah Mow tried to sell UH’s defensive identity to Leyva in recruiting her out of Pebble Hills High.
Friday was a promising start. Ah Mow credited her for relieving pressure on Stella Adeyemi (10 kills, two errors), allowing the sophomore hitter to focus on blocking and hitting.
Lang said she was “so proud of (the younger players) because it’s really easy after a loss like the first set to come back and be tight, but I think that players like Victoria, and Stella didn’t get a lot of game time last year, both of them came in and they were loose and ready to fight.”
Another sophomore, Tali Hakas, returned from competition with the Israeli national team on Wednesday night and contributed five kills against six errors.
Starting middles Jacyn Bamis and Miliana Sylvester, replacing Igiede and Kennedi Evans, combined for nine kills and 14 errors. Ah Mow said the team would continue to try to get them involved to take pressure off of Alexander.
Alexander’s previous career kills high was 21.
Said Alexander of what it took on the night: “Grittiness. I feel like people see us coming in, ‘oh, a team with their team, this will be an easy win.’ I think we use that as fuel. … Let us be the underdogs, because it makes the win more fun.”
Ah Mow showed a willingness to substitute liberally. Eleven of the 13 players on the UH roster saw action.
The Wahine will prepare for San Diego of the West Coast Conference in a 5 p.m. Sunday matchup with a chance to win the three-team Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic. USD and SMU play at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Correction: A previous version of the story named Kendra Ham as one of the UH women's volleyball team's players replaced in the middle from last season, instead of Kennedi Evans.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.