Box Score Box Score
HONOLULU - The No. 11 University of Hawai`i Rainbow Wahine volleyball team (29-6) fell to the No. 4 UCLA Bruins (33-3) 16-30, 23-30 and 23-30 in front of a season-high crowd of 9,572 in the NCAA Honolulu Regional Final match at the Stan Sheriff Center Saturday.
Jamie Houston led Hawai`i with 12 kills, six digs and three blocks while Kanoe Kamana`o had 23 assists, two kills, two blocks and nine digs. Sarah Mason finished with seven kills, four digs and three blocks while Juliana Sanders and Kari Gregory posted four blocks apiece.
UCLA came out firing from the beginning, taking leads of 4-0, 11-4 and 18-6. UH was able to fight back to make the deficit a little tighter, but eventually fell 30-16. The Bruins hit .571 out of the gates in game one while UH hit just .067.
Hawai`i put up a bigger fight in game two as there were seven ties in the game. The last came on a kill by Mason, knotting the score at 14-14. But that was when the Bruins made their run, scoring five of the next six to go ahead 19-15. Hawai`i was able to pull back within a point on a couple occasions, before UCLA ended the game with a 8-2 run, taking it 30-23.
The Rainbow Wahine again battled with the Bruins early in the third game, holding leads at 6-4, 7-5 and 8-6. But UCLA got back on top in the middle of the game on a 7-2 run, taking a 13-10 edge. A block by Sanders and Amber Kaufman got UH back within a point at 17-16. UCLA pulled away again before an ace by Kamana`o capped a 3-0 run that again got UH within a point at 22-21. But the Bruins had one final run in them, as they would score eight of the final 10 points, taking game three 30-23.
With the loss, Hawai`i ended its season at 29-6. It also ended the careers of seniors Kamana`o, Mason and Cayley Thurlby.
Kamana`o ended her career seventh on the NCAA all-time career assists list with 6,428. She also finished her career third in digs (1,220), fifth in block assists (403), seventh in total blocks (428) and ninth in aces (96) on the UH career list.
Mason ended her career with 734 kills and 458 digs while Thurlby ends up with 421 assists and 207 digs.
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