LAS VEGAS >> Tali Hakas sat in a courtside chair next to her roommate, Panna Ratkai, who was leaning forward looking to the ground with a towel over her head.
The pain of not converting three match points and losing 19-25, 25-22, 20-25, 25-17, 18-16 to UCLA in the tournament championship of the Lucky Aces Invitational at Orleans Arena on Sunday was evident in the moment.
It was a victory at hand snatched away in the final moments by a power conference team on the doorstep of the Top 25.
Similar to UH’s five-set loss to No. 18 Baylor on opening weekend, the Rainbow Wahine (8-3) were right there on the verge of a major win. Instead, the painful loss will serve as motivation for a team beginning its first week in the Mountain West Conference on Friday at home at Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
“We know that we played some really good volleyball, but we’re also not satisfied with the results,” middle blocker Miliana Sylvester said. “We’re going to continue to get better in the gym and use this as fuel for the conference (season).”
Sylvester put down a season-high 16 kills with seven blocks and Ratkai led all Rainbow Wahine with 19 kills on 66 swings.
Don’t miss out on what’s happening!
Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It’s FREE!
Hawaii, despite getting blocked 15 times and outdug 83-63, had a 14-11 lead in the fifth set with three match points.
It thought the match was over on a UCLA hitting error, but Ratkai was called for a net violation to extend the match.
Maggie Li, who led all players with 20 kills, converted back-to-back on swings to tie the match at 14.
Hawaii would pull even twice after UCLA led 15-14, but a service error and a hitting error did in the Rainbow Wahine in a match that lasted 2 hours, 56 minutes.
“Once again, pretty good volleyball. We want to continue to be good and then peaking to greatness every once in a while. That was kind of a culmination of everything we have in the nonconference,” Hawaii coach Joshua Walker said. “We kind of saw a little but of everything, but give credit to UCLA. They played really hard and began to figure things out. We had plenty of swings to end it at the end and they got really gritty.”
Li added 11 digs and libero Lola Schumacher, the tournament’s most outstanding player, had a match-high 29 digs for the Bruins (9-2), who have won the last four meetings against Hawaii dating back to 2019.
Hawaii had its seven-match winning streak, tied for the longest since 2023, snapped with its second five-set loss of the season.
The Rainbow Wahine held the Bruins to a .192 hitting percentage and forced 31 hitting errors to nearly pull off the upset.
“I mean there are a few things that we always know that we can be cleaner on,” Sylvester said. “We pride ourselves obviously on serve and pass. I think we could have gotten a few more blocks and obviously I need to put the ball in the court with a little bit more consistency.”
Hawaii hit .303 in the opening set and used some spectacular defense on the final two points to take the early lead against the Bruins.
UH had led by as many as six points before UCLA closed to 18-16, prompting a UH timeout. Hawaii got a good pass on the play out of the tournament to set up Ratkai for a kill from the left side. She then went back to serve and notched one of UH’s two aces of the opening set to get the lead back to 20-16.
Freshman Cameron Holcomb, who notched the other ace, served out the set with Sylvester, Ratkai and Tali Hakas putting down consecutive kills to end it.
UCLA’s middles helped slow down Hawaii’s offensive attack with four blocks in the second set to even the match.
Neither team led by more than two points until Eliana Urzua and Brooke Harwood teamed to double block Maeli Cormier back-to-back for a 21-18 Bruins lead.
Hawaii fought off two set points before Marianna Singletary put it away with a kill down the line.
UH had four blocks of its own but only 10 kills and no aces.
Hawaii trailed for the first time at the media timeout but stormed back scoring 11 of the final 17 points to take the third set.
UCLA unraveled down the stretch, delaying multiple plays to get into debates with the down refs.
It was the third consecutive set UCLA hit less than .200.
After making 23 hitting errors in the first three sets, UCLA had just four in the fourth to help force a fifth.
“I think that fourth set we just kind of were a little bit flat early because they got off to a good start,” Walker said. “They got off to a good start in Set 3 as well but we kind of kept it close. That’s the one set you want back because that wasn’t characteristic of us.”
Iowa State 3, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 0
Nayeli Gonzalez had 12 kills to help the Cyclones avoid going winless in the tournament with a 25-17, 25-17, 25-19 sweep of the Islanders.
Pam McCune also had 12 kills for Iowa State (6-5) and hit .733. Rachel Van Gorp collected a match-high 22 assists.
Logan Dyer had nine kills to lead Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (2-8), which lost all nine sets in the tournament.
| BRUINS (9-2) | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATTACK | SET | SERVE | BLOCK | DEF. | REC. | ||||||||||||
| NO. | PLAYER | SP | K | E | TA | PCT. | A | E | SA | SE | BS | BA | BE | D | BHE | RE | PTS |
| 11 | Singletary | 5 | 11 | 6 | 27 | .185 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 18.0 |
| 8 | Li | 5 | 20 | 7 | 49 | .265 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 22.0 |
| 3 | Duffey | 5 | 2 | 1 | 6 | .167 | 54 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 3.0 |
| 1 | Utterback | 5 | 8 | 2 | 20 | .300 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 8.5 |
| 30 | Schmcher. | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 0 | 0 | 2.0 |
| 17 | Urzua | 5 | 12 | 6 | 30 | .200 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 14.5 |
| 13 | Harwood | 5 | 6 | 3 | 22 | .136 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8.5 |
| 7 | Hickman | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 5 | Bendziute | 3 | 5 | 6 | 17 | -.059 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 7.5 |
| 22 | Lutz | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 12 | Sarafa | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 4 | Thompson | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Totals | 5 | 64 | 31 | 172 | .192 | 61 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 18 | 5 | 83 | 0 | 5 | 84.0 | |
| RAINBOW WAHINE (8-3) | |||||||||||||||||
| ATTACK | SET | SERVE | BLOCK | DEF. | REC. | ||||||||||||
| NO. | PLAYER | SP | K | E | TA | PCT. | A | E | SA | SE | BS | BA | BE | D | BHE | RE | PTS |
| 22 | Ratkai | 5 | 19 | 5 | 66 | .212 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 20.5 |
| 15 | Lopez | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| 9 | Hakas | 5 | 14 | 6 | 44 | .182 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 17.0 |
| 2 | Leyva | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 0 | 1 | 2.0 |
| 3 | Arquette | 5 | 2 | 0 | 5 | .400 | 47 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 3.5 |
| 12 | Sylvester | 5 | 16 | 5 | 32 | .344 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 19.5 |
| 16 | Holcomb | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1.0 |
| 19 | Purser | 5 | 4 | 1 | 13 | .231 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5.5 |
| 11 | Cormier | 4 | 5 | 5 | 23 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 5.5 |
| 1 | Antiga | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | -.333 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1.5 |
| 8 | Baudrillard | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Totals | 5 | 61 | 24 | 187 | .198 | 54 | 2 | 5 | 12 | 0 | 20 | 2 | 63 | 0 | 5 | 76.0 | |
|
T—2:56. A—NA. Officials—Bonnie O’Connor, Chris Hahn, Bert Casem, Javis Robert Lagasca. Key — SP: Sets played; K: kills; E: hitting errors; TA: Total attempts; PCT.: Hitting percentage; A: Assist; E: Setting error; SA: Service ace; SE: Service error; BS: Block solos; BA: Block assists; BE: Block errors; D: Digs; BHE: Ball-handling errors; RE: receiving error; PTS: Points (kills plus blocks plus aces). |
|||||||||||||||||