The Hawaii women's volleyball team's appearance in its 31st straight NCAA Tournament was a brief one.
Big 12 Player of the Year Melanie Parra put down 24 kills and TCU was too much to handle for the Big West tournament champion Rainbow Wahine in a 25-17, 25-18, 25-22 sweep defeat at Oregon’s Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, Ore., on Thursday.
UH’s season came to an end at 21-10.
Coach Robyn Ah Mow faulted her team's serve-and-pass game against the fifth-seeded Horned Frogs (22-7), leading to at least 12 total errors in each set.
"You can’t win making 12 to 15 errors a game," Ah Mow said in the NCAA postmatch press conference. "But I’m proud for them for fighting back."
Big West Player of the Year Caylen Alexander was held to a season-low nine kills for a full match. The national kills leader had five attack errors to hit .114.
Parra, meanwhile, could not be stopped. She showcased a variety of shots among her 63 swings, almost half of her team’s total, and hit .302.
"We already knew Parra was going to get her kills. She’s an awesome player," Ah Mow said. "We just gotta kinda slow her down. We knew we had to get them out of system. Our serving, I thought we kind of let up on the line for a little bit."
Parra, of Mexico, set a TCU program record for kills in a three-set match.
TCU coach Jason Williams said it was the best his team had performed in its last few matches. The Horned Frogs advanced to face the winner of subregional host Oregon and High Point.
"When she’s on, she’s one of the best and I hope she’s on for five more matches," he said of Parra.
The Horned Frogs’ block was a key factor as UH’s middles, Jacyn Bamis and Miliana Sylvester, were largely negated with 10 kills against seven errors.
UH put its most competitive set together in the third frame, tying it up at 22 on a back-row kill by Alexander, but Parra came back with a kill and the Wahine gave up a costly ace to Jalyn Gibson to set up match point.
Alexander then hit wide following a timeout. It was only the second time during a notoriously up-and-down season that UH was swept.
It appeared for a time that Ah Mow’s team had fired up to potentially even the match in Set 2, tying it up at 18. But then the Wahine committed a number of mistakes, including four straight attack errors, as the Horned Frogs went on a 7-0 run to take a commanding 2-0 lead.
"There were a lot of emotions out there and I think we let them control us," said hitter Tali Hakas, who had eight kills, 10 digs and a block. "That wasn’t us. We can do better. And it’s just frustrating knowing we can bring more out there and just being us, the fact that’s stopping us from succeeding. But coming back we know what we have to work on so we’re going to come back stronger."
It was the final match for UH seniors Kate Lang and Tayli Ikenaga. Lang, of Keller, Texas, had 27 assists and 12 digs while aggressively seeking her dump shot and posting four kills on eight attempts.
The libero Ikenaga, a Moanalua alumna from Honolulu, had a match-high 16 digs as that was one of the few statistics that UH won as a team. Victoria Leyva had 10 and Tali Hakas 10. Ikenaga also had her team’s lone ace.
"Definitely losing sucks and I know that we could’ve went out there much better," an emotional Ikenaga said. "Like Coach Rob said, we definitely shot ourself in the foot. I don’t think this game defines us as a team, as a whole, and I think we definitely had our ups and downs but I think this team is known for doing the long run and going through adversity.
"It’s just really hard to go out like that but I’m really proud of these girls and the coaching staff, they supported me throughout these four years."
Note: This story was updated with details and quotes.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.
