Big West: Hawaii Snaps #12 Cal Poly’s Streak Behind Iosia’s Near Triple-Double

STANDINGS:

Big West Roundup: Oct. 26, 2018

HAWAII DEF. #12 CAL POLY 3-2 (14-25, 25-19, 17-25, 25-18, 15-10)

• Hawaii improves to 14-6 (10-1, Big West); #12 Cal Poly falls to 19-2 (9-1, Big West)
• Honolulu, Hawaii
  • Attendance: 7,476
• Box Score
• Hawaii Release | Cal Poly Release

There’s now a tie atop the Big West standings, after the Rainbow Wahine took down Cal Poly for the first time in their last four tries.

The match is huge for Hawaii’s potential NCAA Tournament chances too, while Cal Poly’s shot at hosting took a bit of a hit but is still alive after their first conference loss since 2016 that ends 26 consecutive Big West wins.

It was a great match for Torrey Van Winden for the Mustangs, who logged 21 kills (.283), 10 digs, 7 blocks, 3 assists and an ace – good for her eighth double-double this season. Amazingly, she helped the team hit .281 and out-block Hawaii 19 to 11.5. Part of those numbers were helped because they dominated the sets they won and hit .391, but in the games they lost they hit a combined .195.

Hawaii on the other hand hit just .191, but it was mainly because they were shut down in their lost sets and got it going in the ones they won. They had 21 kills compared to 17 errors (.053) in the first and third, but then posted 42 kills to 14 errors in the other three (.304), including a .526 clip in the fifth. They also totaled more aces (4-1) on less serve errors (4-9) with more digs (65-62) as Norene Iosia (23 assists, 21 digs, 9 kills, .200, 2 blocks) nearly had a triple-double.

Individually for Hawaii, McKenna Granato (17 kills, .214, 5 digs), Angel Gaskin (12 kills, .241, 3 blocks) and Natasha Burns (11 kills, .381, 6 blocks) had double-digit kills. Faith Ma’afala (21 assists, 13 digs) added a double-double as the complement to the 6-2 with Iosia.

Beyond Van Winden for the Mustangs, Madilyn Mercer (9 kills, .350, 11 blocks), Meredith Phillips (7 kills, .500, 7 blocks), Jessica McRoskey (7 kills, .278) and Avalon Denecochea (7 kills, .385, 41 assists, 7 blocks) were all efficient. Adlee Van Winden (6 kills, 11 digs) was held in check by Hawaii though in hitting just .100. Katherine Brouker also added 27 digs.

Next Up: Hawaii hosts UC Santa Barbara fresh off of a season-high in attendance. Cal Poly comes back home after getting the weekend off to play UC Irvine.