{"id":46464,"date":"2025-11-10T13:11:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T13:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/46464\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T13:11:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T13:11:26","slug":"hawaii-womens-volleyball-defeats-northridge-bakersfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/46464\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii women’s volleyball defeats Northridge, Bakersfield"},"content":{"rendered":"

HONOLULU \u2014 November tradition and pride have arrived just in time for the Hawaii women\u2019s volleyball team.<\/p>\n

The program record for losses has already come and gone, but the Rainbow Wahine think they may have found something in the crucial final weeks of the season. They defeated last-place Cal State Bakersfield, 25-11, 20-25, 25-18, 25-14 in front of 3,258 (5,145 tickets issued) at the Stan Sheriff Center on Sunday night to sweep their two-match home week.<\/p>\n

UH (11-14, 7-7 Big West) moved into a fifth-place tie with Cal State Northridge, the team it swept Friday in perhaps its best all-around match of the season. The Wahine have won three in a row and sit a game ahead of UC Irvine (6-8) for the last tournament spot with four matches left. That will be a key race as the Anteaters own the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Wahine.<\/p>\n

[Note: See below for more photos of Hawaii-Cal State Bakersfield women’s volleyball.]<\/p>\n

\u201cI think now the team is starting to believe,\u201d UH assistant coach Nick Castello said after the Wahine dispatched the Roadrunners (5-21, 2-12) with only one real hiccup in the second set.<\/p>\n

The middles carried the day as Bri Gunderson (.526) and Miliana Sylvester (.364) each put down 12 kills.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely starting to get better, it\u2019s peaking,\u201d setter Adrianna Arquette, who had 43 assists, 14 digs, four blocks and two aces, said of her connection with the middles. \u201cI can definitely get better at connecting with them in different situations, putting them in different spots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hitter Cha\u2019lei Reid supplied 11 kills but committed 10 attack errors. Tyla Reese Mane supplied nine kills and Ravyn Dash put down the match-winner among her six.<\/p>\n

Head coach Robyn Ah Mow has played a more consistent lineup of late and has gotten commensurate results. That was not possible in the immediate aftermath of season-ending injuries to hitters Tali Hakas and Stella Adeyemi in the early days.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, UH won service aces (8-5), blocks (13-8), and went plus-14 on digs. It hit .233 to CSUB\u2019s .039.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re taking smarter swings, we\u2019re keeping our serves in when it matters for momentum,\u201d Sylvester said. \u201cWe\u2019re a little more scrappy than I think we were at the beginning of the season on defense, and I think our passing and offense hold up pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The recent taste of success begat a better attention to detail in practices and game preparation, Castello noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning of the season, it was flip a coin; you didn\u2019t know what player you were going to see, what team you were going to see,\u201d Castello said. \u201cYou could play lights-out one set, and then the next set, \u2018oh, this team kind of forgot how to play volleyball.\u2019 I think the consistency is starting to be a little bit better.\u201d<\/p>\n

UH\u2019s streak of NCAA Tournament appearances is alive at 31 seasons in large part because the Wahine won the Big West\u2019s automatic berth through the conference tournament in both years (2023 and 2024) since the league reintroduced that event. For a long period, the Big West awarded the auto berth to the regular-season champion.<\/p>\n

That would\u2019ve been fine for the Wahine in past years, as they either won the league outright or had the resume for an at-large NCAA berth. More than ever, the conference tournament is their only hope.<\/p>\n

Only the top six of 11 teams qualify for the Big West tournament Thanksgiving weekend at Long Beach State\u2019s Pyramid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been blessed enough the last two years having this conference tournament for us to punch a top seed to get a bye and do what we did,\u201d Castello said. \u201cThis year we\u2019re OK if we\u2019re not one of the top two teams, and we\u2019re OK if we just have to find a way to dig ourselves in, play quarters, play semis, and see if we can give ourselves another opportunity at a championship match.\u201d<\/p>\n

UH embarks on its final regular-season road trip this week. Scoring a win at either UC Santa Barbara (18-8, 10-4) on Friday or Cal Poly (21-5, 12-2) on Saturday would go a long way toward a Long Beach trip. Cal Poly in particular is playing well; the Mustangs have won 10 straight.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hawaii hitter Tyla Reese Mane, middle, reacted to the point to win Set 1 against Cal State Bakersfield. (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hawaii’s Tyla Reese Mane put up a block against Cal State Bakersfield’s Nele Broszat. (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hawaii hitter Cha’lei Reid fired a jump serve. (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hawaii middle Miliana Sylvester, right, jousted with CSUB’s Suelen Lima. (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Head coach Robyn Ah Mow, left, and her coaching staff came together after the match. (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hawaii middle Bri Gunderson put a shot past CSUB’s Sabrina Jones. (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hawaii hitter Ravyn Dash attempted to hit past the CSUB block. (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Cal State Bakersfield’s Druegan Davis took a swing against UH’s Ravyn Dash (32) and Miliana Sylvester (12). (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hawaii setter Adrianna Arquette put up a ball. (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n

Brian McInnis<\/a>\u00a0covers the state\u2019s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.\u00a0He can be reached at\u00a0brian.mcinnis@<\/a>charter.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU \u2014 November tradition and pride have arrived just in time for the Hawaii women\u2019s volleyball team. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[19375,6632,6631,151,153,152,19376,1815,2289,127,136],"class_list":["post-46464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-app-college-sports","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-brian-mcinnis","tag-college","tag-hawaii","tag-sports","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}