FULLERTON, CALIF.—The University of Hawai’i women’s volleyball team (19-6, 12-2 Big West) got off to a sluggish start but finished strong to roll to a four-set win at Cal State Fullerton, 23-25, 25-17, 25-22, 25-14. In its final regular season road match of the seaosn, senior middle blocker Amber Igiede put down a match-high 17 kills and tied her season high with three aces on Saturday afternoon at Titan Gym in Fullerton, Calif..
The Titans could not find a solution as they tried to stop Igiede as she put down 10+ kills for the 22nd time this season. Igiede’s five kills in the first frame propelled her past former UH All-American outside hitter Emily Hartong’s 1,277 career kills to go into 12th place in program history. Igiede ended the match with 1,290 career kills.
For the second-straight match, outside hitter Tali Hakas tied her career-high with 11 kills. She added eight digs and a pair of aces.
Junior setter Kate Lang recorded her 11th double-double of the season with 40 assists and 13 digs, while libero Tayli Ikenaga scooped up a season-high 18 digs for her eighth double-digit dig match since reclaiming her role as the starting libero.
As a team, UH edged out Cal State Fullerton (1-24, 0-16 BW) in almost every statistical category—most notably, dealing out 12 service aces with just two serving errors—the least for the season and the fewest since UH’s mat vs. Long Beach State last year (11/4/2022).
Hawai’i began the match with a 5-2 lead. But the Titans reeled off eight of the next nine points to take a 13-9 lead. UH rallied to score four-straight to knot the score at 15-15, but Fullerton answered with a 5-to-1 run from which UH could not recover from. The Titans held off UH down the stretch to take Set 1, 25-23 to snap a 13-straight set losing streak to Hawai’i dating back to 2021.
With the score tied at 3-3, UH scored four to take a 6-3 lead. Hawai’I slowly pulled away leading by as many as nine points at 22-13 as it coasted to take Set 2, 25-17.
The third set was close. Although UH held the lead through much of the set, the Titans would trail by no more than five, and down the stretch, a 4-to-1 Fullerton streak closed the gap to just two points at 23-21 and 24-22 before Hawai’i finaly ended the set with a Kennedi Evans kill, 25-22.
The fourth set was all Hawai’i. Riley Wagoner started behind the service line and the Rainbow Wahine raced out to a 6-0 lead—which included two Wagoner service aces. After a Titan kill, UH reeled off four more points—including back-to-back aces by Ikenaga to extend the lead to 10-1. UH would lead by as many as 11 and close out the match by winning Set 4, 25-14. Seven of UH’s 12 service aces came in the fourth set alone.
The Titans had three players hit for double-digit kills, led by Aubrey Beaver’s 15 while Lyla Traylor posted a double-double with 12 kills and a team-high 16 digs.
Hawai’i extended its win-streak against Cal State Fullerton to 49-0.
The Rainbow Wahine will return home to host its Senior Week as it honors its six seniors—Chandler Cowell, Talia Edmonds, Kennedi Evans, Kendra Ham, Amber Igiede, and Riley Wagoner. UH will first take on UC San Diego on Friday, Nov. 17 followed by Long Beach State on Saturday, Nov. 18. First serve is slated for 7:00 p.m. HT on both nights.
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