HAYWARD, California – Hawai'i Hilo Volleyball closed out its non-conference portion of the season Saturday afternoon with a four-set defeat to Colorado State Pueblo (19-25, 26-24, 24-26, 20-25) at the Route 92 Classic in Cal State East Bay's Pioneer Gym.

Maya Imoto-Eakin dished out 30 assists and added three service aces with nine digs. Samara Cruz led with 19 kills (.311) along with three aces and 12 digs. Tani Hoke totaled 27 digs as Taylor Tullo chipped in 15 kills (.205) and 11 digs.

Despite holding an overall digs advantage at 80-69, the Vulcans were plagued by 28 hitting errors to just 14 from the ThunderWolves.

"Way too many unforced errors on our side of the net," Hawai'i Hilo head coach Chris Leonard said. "We're taking big swings and making great plays, but we're also giving up a few too many unforced errors and that's something we'll work on cleaning up in practice."

Hawai'i Hilo wrapped up the road trip at 1-3 and will enter this Thursday's Pacific West Conference opener with an even 5-5 overall record.

"It will be nice to have an opportunity to get back to a normal schedule," Leonard said. "We've been playing a lot of two-a-day matches and played a lot of volleyball in a short period of time. It was a challenging non-conference season but we feel really confident going into PacWest play."

UP NEXT

Hawai'i Hilo moved to 5-5 overall (0-0 Pacific West Conference) with Colorado State Pueblo at 5-3 (Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference).

The Vulcans are back home to open PacWest Conference play this Thursday, Sept.19 against Academy of Art at 7 p.m.

It will be a short homestand with a matchup against Menlo to follow Saturday night before packing up again and heading back to Northern California for a four-game slate at Dominican (Sept. 29), Academy of Art (Oct. 1), Menlo (Oct. 3) and Jessup (Oct. 5).