The late nights continued for the Hawaii women’s volleyball team, which ran out of the late-game magic that had propelled it to a 4-1 start.
Liberty, in its first season in Conference USA, scored the first win over a ranked opponent in program history with a shocking 17-25, 25-17, 23-25, 25-19, 15-13 victory over the Rainbow Wahine on Thursday night.
A SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd of 3, 245 saw No. 23 Hawaii (4-2 ) lose its first match of the season that went more than three sets.
Kamryn Bacus, the reigning Conference USA Player of the Week, had a match-high 25 kills and Kate Phillips added 20 for the Lady Flames (7-0 ).
Amber Igiede had a team-high 20 kills and seven blocks to lead Hawaii, which just three days earlier earned its first national ranking in four years.
“I don’t think we should have gone to the fifth set if we followed our assignments defensively, ” Igiede said. “Just didn’t perform defensively at all.”
The match ended at 10 :43 p.m. after the opening match of the Outrigger Volleyball Challenge between Pepperdine and UCLA also went five sets.
It was tied 11-all in the fifth set when Julia Mangum was awarded her 15th kill after an out call was overturned following a challenge to give Liberty a 12-11 lead in the fifth set.
UH senior Riley Wagoner responded with a kill, but a service error gave the Lady Flames the advantage right back.
Caylen Alexander, who kept UH in it in the final set with four of her seven kills, put down her last one to tie the score.
Phillips reached the 20-kill mark to give Liberty match point and a UH hitting error ended it.
“Consistency is something we’ve been working on in practice every day, ” Wagoner said. “That’s nothing new to us. We have to keep working on that.”
Wagoner finished with 16 kills and 15 digs, but no other Rainbow Wahine managed more than seven kills.
Hawaii had two chances to close out this match after taking a 2-1 lead and has let teams hang around multiple times already this season.
“We’ve definitely a couple of times already not taken care of the things we should, ” Wagoner said. “The games go longer than they probably should have.”
With the score tied 15-all in the first set, Tali Hakas’ second kill ignited a 10-2 run that ended with back-to-back kills by Igiede in the middle.
Igiede and Wagoner combined for 10 kills in the opening set, with Igiede hitting.556 without an error.
The script reversed in Set 2, with the Lady Flames, who had only dropped three sets over their first six matches, roaring ahead after Hawaii pulled to 16-15 on a rare hitting error in the set by Liberty, which hit.387.
The Lady Flames closed with nine of the final 11 points. Bacus ended it with back-to-back kills to give her 14 through two sets.
Liberty continued the onslaught in Set 3, leading by as many as five, the last time at 18-13 after a second unsuccessful Hawaii challenge.
Hawaii responded with a 7-0 run to inject some life into the home crowd, as Talia Edwards served six straight points to give UH a 20-18 advantage.
A Phillips kill ended the run, but Igiede kept Hawaii ahead with kills sandwiching a UH serving error to make it 22-20.
Kate Lang and Igiede combined on a thunderous block to keep UH’s advantage at two, 23-21.
Liberty saved two match points after a combo block by Lang and Kennedi Evans pushed the lead to three. After a UH timeout, Lang put it away with a dump shot at the net to push UH ahead two sets to one.
Bacus added to her match-high total in kills with seven in the fourth set as Liberty ran away with it, closing with a 4-1 run.
UCLA 3, Pepperdine 2 Iman Ndiaye led four Bruins in double figures with 18 kills and Cheridyn Leverette added 17 to help UCLA come from behind to defeat the Waves 25-20, 21-25, 21-25, 25-21, 15-10 in the opening match of the tournament.
Anna Dodson added 10 kills in 17 swings for UCLA (5-1 ), which has won five in a row since losing to LSU on opening night.
UCLA sophomore Mokihana Tufono, an ‘Iolani alumna, appeared in two sets as a serving specialist.
Grace Chillingworth had 17 kills to lead Pepperdine, which is 1-5 entering tonight’s match against Hawaii.
