LONG BEACH, Calif. – The University of Hawai'i women's volleyball team swept third-seeded Cal Poly, 25-17, 25-18, 26-24 in the semifinals of the inaugural Outrigger Big West Championship on Friday at The Walter Pyramid to advance to the title match.
 
The second-seeded Rainbow Wahine (22-8) will face fourth-seeded and host Long Beach State, Saturday at 5:00 p.m. PT (3:00 p.m. HT) for the Big West's automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament. The Beach (21-9) upset top-seeded UC Santa Barbara in five sets in Friday's first semifinal match.
 
Hawai'i and Cal Poly split the season series but on Friday, the Rainbow Wahine dominated the first two sets, hitting at a combined .367 clip. UH closed out the first set on a 5-1 run and in the second used two Kendra Ham aces to surge out to a 14-9 advantage. Pin-hitters Riley Wagoner and Caylen Alexander came out of the gates red-hot--both putting down six kills each int he first set alone. Wagoner finished with 12 kills with five digs and an assist.
 
Cal Poly advanced to the semifinals after a reverse sweep over UC Davis on Wednesday. The Mustangs kept fighting going toe-to-toe with the Rainbow Wahine. In Set 3, UH erased an early five-point deficit and later rallied from being down in a 20-17 hole with four straight to take a 21-20 lead. The Mustangs had set point at 24-23 but Hawai'i scored the match's final three points, including two kills by Amber Igiede to complete the sweep.
 
In all, four Rainbow Wahine tallied double-digit kills on Friday. Igiede finished with 12 kills on 26 errorless attempts, hitting a match-high.462 with two aces and two blocks. It marked her ninth match of the season with at least a kill, an assist, a service ace, a dig and a block. Alexander was a dig shy of a double-double leading all players with 15 kills while adding two aces and nine digs. Ham recorded her second career double-double with a match-high 18 digs and 10 kills with three aces. Her 18 digs tied her career high set in 2022 vs. UC Santa Barbara (10/22/22). Wagoner 
 
The Rainbow Wahine defense was spectacular with 62 combined digs. Setter Kate Lang logged her team-best 13th double-double finishing with 44 assists and 17 digs and Tayli Ikenaga added 10 digs. Lang directed the UH offense to .297 hitting for the match and four players posted double-digit kills.
 
UH and Long Beach State split the season series with each winning on its homecourt. The Beach won in straight sets on Sept. 29 in Long Beach while the Rainbow Wahine needed four sets to win the regular season finale, Nov. 18, in Honolulu.