MATCH STATS
- Hawaii defeats CSUN, 3-2 (25-23, 20-25, 27-25, 22-25, 15-8)
- Hawaii improves to 13-6; CSUN drops to 10-9
- Northridge, California
- Attendance: 671
- Box Score
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. – The Rainbow Wahine remain in second place after a 5 set win on Saturday night to defeat CSUN in a rollercoaster of a match in the Matadome.
Hawaii hit .206 on the night, with a .400 hitting percentage in the third set, as they held CSUN to a .190 clip. The Wahine out blocked the Matadors 11-10.
Hawaii setter Norene Iosia totaled 44 assists and 10 digs for a double-double, to go with two kills and a pair of blocks. On the other side of the net, Lauren Conati notched 39 assists, six digs, and three blocks.
Two Hawaii players posted double-figure kills in McKenna Granato with 24 kills and nine digs on a .250 clip and Emily Maglio with 13 kills and six digs, hitting .393.
CSUN’s offense was led by Aeryn Owens, who had 24 kills on a .321 hitting percentage. Rachel Diaz posted 11 kills on 22 attempts, hitting .227.
Both teams will continue with Big West Play next weekend as Hawaii takes on Riverside and Fullerton and CSUN travels to Cal Poly and Santa Barbara.
PRESS RELEASES
Courtesy of Hawaii Athletics
NORTHRIDGE, Calif.—The University of Hawai’i women’s volleyball team (13-6, 7-1 Big West) survived a roller coaster, five set match at CSUN, 25-23. 20-25. 27-25. 22-25. 15-8. Outside hitter McKenna Granato led UH with 24 kills while middle hitter Emily Maglio posted 13 kills and a match-high eight blocks on Saturday night at the Matadome in Northridge, Calif. The Matadors fell to 10-9 overall and 4-3 in the Big West. With the win, the Rainbow Wahine remain in second place behind Cal Poly who remains unbeaten in conference action at 7-0.
Granato finished just one dig shy of recording her eighth double-double of the season with nine digs. She did however register her seventh match with 20-plus kills and her 13th match with double-figures in kills. She has had at least 10 kills in seven of UH’s last eight matches. Granato also added two service aces and three blocks for a match-high 27.5 total points (kills blocks aces). Granato got her fifth kill in the early stages of Set 2 to hit the 600 career kill milestone mark. She finished the match with 619 career kills.
Maglio recorded double-digit kills for the 14th time this year and the ninth time in the last 10 matches. She finished just two blocks shy of tallying her third straight double-double. She led the UH hitters with a .393 hitting percentage (13-2-28) and for the 15th time this season Maglio led UH in blocks.
Setter Norene Iosia tied her career-high with five service aces and posted her 11th double-double of the year with a match-high 44 assists to go with 10 digs. She also had a hand in two blocks (one solo) and had two kills.
Libero Savanah Kahakai tied Iosia with a team-high of 10 digs and now has 15 double-digit dig matches this season—including the last nine-straight. She is now 32 digs away from tying former UH standout Tara Hittle at No. 4 in the UH career dig list with 1,315. Currently, Kahakai has 1,283 digs in her four year career.
Hawai’i fell behind early by as many as four points at 5-9. But the ‘Bows battled their way back to catch the Matadors at 13-13. From there, the two teams tied five more times before UH was able to score the last three points to take the first set, 25-23.
In the second set, UH led by four points at 12-8 before the Matadors went on a 12-3 run to go up 20-15. CSUN then cruised to win the second set, 25-20 to tie the match at 1-1.
Set 3 saw the Matadors jump out to as big as a five point lead as UH trailed 14-9. Later, down by three, Hawai’i rallied to score five straight points behind the serving of Casey Castillo to take a 23-21 lead. But the Matadors’ Aeryn Owens would crank two kills to knot the score at 23-23. Hawai’I would then have a pair of set points at 24-23 and 25-24 but both times were thwarted by service errors. A pair of CSUN attack errors allowed the ‘Bows to steal Set 3, 27-25 to take a 2-1 lead in the match.
In the fourth set, after trading points early on, Hawai’i found themselves behind by five points early at 11-6. But the ‘Bows would rally on a 4-0 run on the serving of Iosia to cut their deficit to just one point at 11-10. The Matadors however responded with a 4-0 run of their own, capitalizing on three UH hitting errors during that span as CSUN took a 16-11 lead. UH came roaring back on a 5-0 run to take a 20-19 lead. CSUN would answer right back to take a 22-20 lead on a UH attack error and a service ace. But from there, the Matadors would end the frame on a 6-2 run to capture the fourth set, 25-22.
UH jumped out to a quick 5-1 lead to begin the race to 15 in the fifth set. CSUN could never recover from the early deficit. Granato came through in the clutch once again for UH in the fifth set getting four kills with just one error on six attacks plus back-to-back service aces to help lift UH to the win. Hawai’i had five of their 16 service aces in the fifth set—two each by Granato and setter Faith Ma’afala and one by Gianna Guinasso.
Hawai’i edged out CSUN in hitting percentage .206-to-.190 and in blocks 11.0-to-10.0. Although UH was one ace shy of tying the school record of 17, the ‘Bows also committed a season-high 17 service errors in the match. The Rainbow Wahine have won their last eight straight conference road matches dating back to last season.
CSUN’s Owens and Rachel Diaz led the Matadors with a combined 35 kills in the match. Owens tied Granato with a match-high 24 kills and hit .321 while Diaz had 11 kills—seven of which came in the first set. Katie Sato recorded a match-high 14 digs and Melissa Eaglin led CSUN with five blocks.
This was UH’s seventh five set match of the season. UH is now 3-4 in matches that go the distance.
The Rainbow Wahine will return home for its second to last homestand of the season. UH will host UC Riverside on Friday, October 20 and Cal State Fullerton on Saturday, October 21. First serve for both matches are schedule at 7:00 p.m.
Courtesy of CSUN Athletics
NORTHRIDGE, CA – A tough five-set battle went to the visitors Saturday night as Hawai’i pulled away to claim the final set 15-8 in defeating the CSUN Matadors in a Big West Conference match at The Matadome.
After the Rainbow Wahine won the first and third sets, the Matadors battled back to win the fourth set 25-22 setting up the decisive fifth frame.
Unfortunately for the Matadors, Hawai’i claimed five of the first six points of the fifth set and never looked back as they improved to 7-1 in conference play. The loss drops CSUN to 10-9 overall and 4-3 in the Big West.
“I thought we played very well tonight,” said CSUN head coach Jeff Stork. “It was kind of a defensive battle, there was a lot of blocks and a lot of digs and there were some things that we worked on in training that we did very well to exploit their defense. One of the things we need to continue to work on is our first contact, we got caught in a rotation to start the fifth set which opened up that gap.”
Junior Aeryn Owens tied for match-high honors with 24 kills as she hit .321 on 56 attacks. Owens, who added two blocks and one ace, came within one dig of her 10th double-double of the season. Senior Rachel Diaz also reached double figures with 11 kills (.227) to go with four blocks, two aces and two digs.
Setter Lauren Conati had a solid all-around match with 39 assists, six digs, three blocks and one ace. Senior Katie Sato had a match-high 14 digs but the Matadors were out-dug by the Rainbow Wahine 50-47.
Hawai’i, which served 16 aces on the night, trailed by as many as four points in the opening set after a Rainbow Wahine hitting error put CSUN on top 9-5. The visitors continued to whittle away at the Matador lead, eventually pulling even at 13-13 on one of Norene Iosia’s five aces. Neither team led by more than two until the final margin as Hawai’i scored the final two points to take a 25-23 win.
Despite hitting .156, the Matadors won the second set 25-20 as they limited the Rainbow Wahine to a team hitting clip of .056. After an Emily Maglio kill gave the visitors an early 9-4 lead, CSUN battled back behind a series of Owens kills to ultimately open up a 19-15 lead. After a timeout, Hawai’i cut the lead to two (21-19) before the Matadors claimed four of the final five points to even the match.
CSUN led by as many as five points in both the third and fourth sets but were only able to hang on to the lead in the fourth. After the Rainbow Wahine saved one set point in the fourth, Nickeisha Williams‘ swing found the floor on set point setting up the fifth and final set.
After Hawai’i raced out to the 5-1 lead, the Matadors trimmed the lead to two at 6-4 after Conati and Melissa Eaglin stuffed an attack. But three straight Hawai’i points forced a CSUN timeout at 9-4 and the Matadors could only get withing three the rest of the way.
McKenna Granato led Hawai’i with 24 kills (.250) while Maglio added 13 kills on .393 hitting.
CSUN heads up the coast next week as the Matadors travel to Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara for a two-match road trip.
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