Despite keeping its errors in check, the Hawaii women’s volleyball team got checkmated by the host team on the opening day of the Stanford Tournament on Friday.
UH saw its four-game winning streak get snapped, 25-19, 25-18, 25-20, as No. 4 Stanford played three strong sets in Maples Pavilion.
The Rainbow Wahine (4-5) take on old rival UCLA (5-3) at 11 a.m. Hawaii time Saturday. The Bruins defeated Texas State in four sets preceding the UH-Stanford match.
In UH’s first mainland match of the season, it faced its highest-ranked opponent of the nine-year Robyn Ah Mow era — and the highest since Dave Shoji faced No. 1 Minnesota in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, his final season.
The Wahine fell behind early in all three sets, but kept the Cardinal (7-2) honest with rallies to 17-all in the first and 23-20 in the third.
UH committed only 11 attack errors to Stanford’s 17 and won the blocks battle 8-4. Despite that, Stanford hit .262 to UH’s .179. The Cardinal went plus-11 on digs, with four players notching nine or more.
Freshman Cha’lei Reid led the Wahine with 10 kills on .073 hitting with seven digs. Stella Adeyemi supplied eight kills with 11 digs and libero Victoria Leyva had 14 digs. Setter Adrianna Arquette posted 24 assists and eight digs.
Elia Rubin led Stanford with 16 kills and 13 digs. Lizzy Andrew had 12 kills against one error, hitting .647.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.