Hawaii women’s volleyball suffers rare back-to-back home loss

Hawaii’s NCAA Tournament hopes are now down to the Big West Conference tournament after league-leading UC Santa Barbara swept the Rainbow Wahine 25-17, 29-27, 28-26 tonight.

A SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 6,316 saw Hawaii drop back-to-back home matches in conference play for the first time in 30 years.

UH (17-8, 10-4) entered the week with a chance to move into a first-place tie with the Gauchos (23-3, 13-1) with two weeks left in the regular season.

Instead, UH dropped into a tie for third place with Cal Poly, which beat Hawaii in five on Friday, and is likely out of the running for an at-large opportunity.

Hawaii has advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 29 consecutive seasons.

Briana McKnight had 14 kills and Michelle Ohwobete added nine kills and nine digs for UCSB, which survived three set points in the second set to keep momentum from swinging to the home side.

UH middles Kennedi Evans and Amber Igiede had 10 and nine kills respectively to lead Hawaii, which hit .139 for the match.

UH will play its final two road matches of the regular season next weekend at UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton.