ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Hawai'i Hilo Women's Volleyball battled through three tightly-contested opening-weekend matchups, dropping the rematch with Alaska Anchorage, 3-1 (24-26, 25-21, 21-25, 19-25), Saturday afternoon at the Alaska Airlines Center to close the Alaska/Hawai'i Challenge, presented by Alaska Airlines.

"It's a great opportunity for us to play and compete. We saw some good things. We're far from being a really good team, but I saw signs of stuff I liked," first-year head coach Reed Sunahara said. "We didn't help ourselves. Too many mistakes. Those are fixable things. We just need more touches and better execution. We've got good pieces. We just need to maximize everyone's potential."

The Vulcans were out-aced at a narrow 8-2 margin as three of the Seawolves' aces came at a key moment of the opening set to help turn a 21-20 Hawai'i Hilo lead into a 26-24 win for UAA. After the Vulcans took the second set to even the match, the Seawolves managed to settle in and committed just three attack errors in each of the final two frames to close out the win. 

OTHER NOTES

• Malu Garcia: 23 Digs (Career High), 16 Kills (.262)
• Isabella Freeman: 3 Solo Blocks (Career High), 9 Total Blocks
• Alohi Garcia: 12 Kills, 16 Digs
• Hawai'i Hilo moved to 1-2 overall (0-0 PacWest).
• Alaska Anchorage moved to 4-0 overall (0-0 GNAC).

Alaska/Hawai'i Challenge, presented by Alaska Airlines

• Alaska Anchorage: 4-0 Record
• Alaska: 3-1 Record
• Hawai'i Hilo: 1-2 Record
• Chaminade: 0-3 Record
• HPU: 0-2 Record

ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM

• Tia Allen, Alaska Anchorage
• Madison Galloway, Alaska Anchorage
• Malu Garcia, Hawai'i Hilo
• Elena Guc, Alaska
• Lillie Hinton, Chaminade
• Tessa Onaga, Alaska
• Emerson Reinke, Hawai'i Hilo

UP NEXT

Hawai'i Challenge

• Friday, Sept. 5 (10 AM) vs Cal State East Bay (Honolulu, Hawai'i (O'ahu) / The Shark Tank at HPU)
• Friday, Sept. 5 (4 PM) vs Cal Poly Humboldt (Honolulu, Hawai'i (O'ahu) / The Shark Tank at HPU)
• Saturday, Sept. 6 (10 AM) vs St. Mary's (Honolulu, Hawai'i (O'ahu) / McCabe Gymnasium at Chaminade)
• Saturday, Sept. 6 (4 PM) vs Cal State LA (Honolulu, Hawai'i (O'ahu) / The Shark Tank at HPU)

PACWEST PRESEASON POLL

Hawai'i Hilo was voted No. 4 in the Pacific West Conference Preseason Coaches Poll released earlier this week. The Vulcans finished 2024 in a four-way tie for fourth place. 2025 will feature the inaugural four-team PacWest Conference Championships postseason tournament hosted by Chaminade on O'ahu (Nov. 20-21).

PURCHASE TICKETS

Season and individual tickets for the Vulcans' nine home matches this fall are available for purchase at HiloAthletics.com/tickets. New pricing tiers have been introduced for preferred and general seating. In 2024, Hawai'i Hilo ranked No. 3 in all of Division II for venue percent capacity attendance at the on-campus Vulcan Gym.