ESPN Honolulu Rainbow Wahine play-by-play voice Tiff Wells with his six biggest takeaways from the previous week for the Bows
1 – One Special Year For 17. 2024 was a year to remember for the Junior pin hitter from Alpharetta, Georgia. When six seniors graduated after the 2023 season and another upperclassman hitting the transfer portal, many wondered who would become the go-to player for the offense in 2024. That question was answered very quickly as No. 17 took her game to a whole new level. Playing in all but one match this season, Caylen Alexander scored double-digit kills in 28 of the 30 matches. 15 of those 30 she had 20 or more kills. In two of them, she notched 30 or more; that included a career-high 38 against Texas State on September 14th, the most for a UH player since 2006 (Jamie Houston with 35 against USC in the 2006 Honolulu Regional Semifinal). A Big West Conference record 7-time Offensive Player of the Week winner, she was named the BWC’s Player of the Year, UH’s fourth award in the last five years. Finishing the season with 17 double-doubles, Alexander added 611 kills here in 2024, which is the most by a UH player in the current 25-point set format (since 2008) and most since 2007 (Jaime Houston had 623 in 2007). As 16 teams head into the Regional round, Alexander in the NCAA ranks: 1st (611 kills and 676.5 points), 5th (5.09 kills per set) and 7th (5.64 points per set). Her current career kill total sits at 1225, which is good for 16th at UH. All-Region teams are announced on Tuesday and with UH sitting in the Pacific region (Hawai`i, Alaska, Arizona and California), one would expect to see her name on that list.
2 – Mahalo To Our Two Seniors. Senior Night in Mānoa was a lot shorter this year and while there were just two seniors, they each provided big contributions throughout their four-year careers donning the green and white. Two regular season Big West Conference titles, two Big West Conference tournament titles, Kate Lang and Tayli Ikenaga helped usher Hawai`i into the National Tournament each year of their collegiate career, extending UH’s streak to 31 consecutive appearances (42 overall). Lang had to wait a year to start playing college volleyball because the conference cancelled the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That 2021 season began for both Lang and Ikenaga with no fans in the stands and included weekly regular testing and strict travel protocols. 51 career double-doubles (including three straight to end 2024) for the two-time BWC Setter of the Year, Kate Lang finishes her Rainbow Wahine career third all-time in assists and is just one of three UH setters with 4,000 or more assists and 1,000 or more digs. Her 10.42 assists per set average places her sixth all-time at UH. 13 straight matches with ten or more digs, Tayli Ikenaga recorded the feat 29 times in 2024 and 76 times for her career. The BWC Libero of the Year and the Jersey Mike’s Most Outstanding Player of The Hawaiian Islands presents the 2024 Big West Women’s Volleyball Championship, the Moanalua alumna finishes her career fifth all-time in digs. Her 3.35 digs per set average places her third all-time at UH.
3 – 42…And Counting. The three-time defending Big West champions entered 2024 with a 13-player roster. Preseason picked to finish second behind Cal Poly, the season began with a resume building (and RPI gold mine) win against SMU. With a non-conference that featured matches at Baylor and Texas, an unexpected loss at UNLV put UH at 6-4 entering conference play. A conference home-opening loss to UC Irvine (3-2), a home loss to UC Davis (3-1), a 3-0 loss at UC Santa Barbara, a 5-set loss at UC Riverside and conference finale loss at UC Irvine (3-1), it put UH at 13-5 in conference play but with the tiebreaker over UC Davis, the Rainbow Wahine were the 2-seed in the Hawaiian Islands presents the 2024 Big West Women’s Volleyball Championship. As the RPI sat at 40 entering the semifinal, some wondered if the Bows would receive an at-large bid if a loss occurred on Thanksgiving weekend. A gritty win over UC Davis in the semifinal, followed by a victory over top-seed and injury-riddled Cal Poly propelled the Rainbow Wahine as the automatic qualifying recipient from the BWC. In a roller coaster ride of a 2024 season that saw a little bit of everything, Hawai`i was still able to overcome everything en route to their 31st consecutive NCAA appearance and 42nd overall. Only Penn State (all 44 appearances), Nebraska (43) and Stanford (43) have more NCAA appearances than Hawai`i.
4 – Oregon Trail…Again. For a second consecutive season and third time since 2018, Hawai`i was sent to the Eugene Subregional. Each first-round opponent (2018-Baylor, 2023-Iowa State, 2024-TCU) was a member of the Big 12 Conference. Two first-round losses and a second-round defeat, UH hasn’t been to the Regional weekend since 2019, when UH played in the Madison Regional Semifinal against Nebraska. With the 3-0 loss to TCU, UH finished the 2024 campaign at 21-10, the most losses since 1993 (19-11). For the first time this season, no UH player finished with double-digit kills. Now 36-6 all-time in Round 1 of the NCAAs (83-39 all-time), the 3-0 loss to TCU was UH’s first time not winning a set in the NCAAs since 1997. It was a short-lived trek on the Oregon Trail for UH as TCU’s Melanie Parra scored 24 kills (the most in a 3-set match in TCU history) in the victory.
5 – Hosting, Seeding Proves Paramount. Each of the 31 conferences had an automatic bid and those 31 teams were joined by 33 at-large recipients to form the field of 64 for the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship. Different than March Madness where everyone is seeded 1-68, Women’s Volleyball has just the top 32 teams seeded 1 through 8. The top 4 seeds in each region host a subregional with the highest remaining seed hosting the Regional. None of the unseeded teams made it out of a subregional. 11 of the 16 teams that remain were ones that hosted a subregional. 13 of those 16 come from 3 of the 4 Power Conferences (Big Ten, SEC and ACC. Of those other three teams: two (Creighton and Marquette) are from a conference that borders a Power 4 (Big East) and one (Dayton) who comes from a true Group of 5 conference (Atlantic-10).
6 – Patience Equaled Postseason. The 2023 season saw six seniors graduate. During the offseason, a seventh player transferred out and an eighth was a graduate transfer out of the program. A five-player freshman class for 2024 became four after one elected to not continue her volleyball career after graduating high school. Despite efforts being made to take advantage of the transfer portal, UH entered fall camp with a roster of 13. On Day 1 of fall camp, coaches and players embraced the journey that was laid out in front of them. They preached patience with this small group, this relatively inexperienced group as four of the seven starters would either be true freshmen or returning players that didn’t see much court time in the prior season. One (Victoria Leyva) dazzled in the opening week of the season, on her way to being named to the Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Classic. A second (Maddie Way) came off the bench to help the Bows reverse sweep Oregon State in Week 3. Adrianna Arquette got her feet wet periodically throughout the season and saw time as a serving specialist, hitter and setter. Seeing herself in the conference’s Top 17 in hitting percentage (10th – .297) and blocks per set (17th – .73), Miliana Sylvester started every match of the season and received Big West Conference All-Freshman accolades. A big question mark after last season was who would fill the void of both middle blocker positions vacated by Amber Igiede and Kennedi Evans due to graduation. In their first year as starters, Sylvester and Jacyn Bamis held their own in the middle during the season. Tali Hakas and Caylen Alexander interchanged hitting left and right as Hakas recorded 11 matches with 10 or more kills and 20 times had double-digit digs. Eight double-doubles for Hakas on the season and became as much of a digging machine as a libero as she was top 15 in the conference in digs per set. Undersized on the left side, Stella Adeyemi saw 13 matches this season with 10 or more kills and just continued to hit away against taller blocks. Backup setter Jackie Matias saw time as a serving substitution as well and provided key serving runs during matches. This roster of 13 had their growing pains but rode the roller coaster ride of a season into the postseason. The Bows signed three ahead of the 2025 season as Kahea Moriwaki (Libero/Defensive Specialist out of Punahou) and Makena Biondi (Middle Blocker out of Agoura High in Agoura Hills, Calif.) signed on the first day National Signing Day on November 13. Kahuku’s Chalei Reid put pen to paper this past Wednesday. As of 2025, the NCAA will limit the roster size for Division 1 women’s volleyball to 18 players with all eligible for full or partial scholarship (previously limited to 12 full scholarships). However, not every school must buy into providing 18 scholarships. December 8th marked the first day of the transfer window for women’s college volleyball, which lasts through January 6th. At the moment, UH doesn’t expect to lose anyone to the transfer portal. With what could be a roster of 14 next year (11 returnees, 3 freshmen), there is always the transfer portal to try and add more newcomers to the roster.