The BYU–Hawaii women’s volleyball team opened their 2015 season by hosting the Hawaii Invitation Tournament on campus. The Lady Seasiders played four matches in the span of three days, Sept. 3-5 and finished the tournament with two wins and two losses.
The 11th ranked Lady Seasiders came into the tournament and this year’s season with a new look as the team lost five starters from last year’s team. One of the many questions the Lady Seasiders were looking to answer with this tournament was which players will fill the now vacant spots.
Of all the spots to fill, the biggest is the one left by former All-American Stella Chen, who broke the school’s career kills record last year. Lady Seasiders will now look to Leilani Adolpho and Malary Reid to fill those shoes.
One spot they will not have to fill is the setter. After taking the year off last year to become a mother, Michelle Chen returns again to bring a big boost for the Lady Seasiders. Last month, Chen was named the Pacific West Conference Pre-season setter of the year.
“We really focused on learning to play together and how to play with our new teammates,” said senior Kathy Kalougata, an exercise science major from Idaho Falls, Idaho.
The Lady Seasiders opened the invitational tournament with a comeback win against Simon Fraser. After losing a close opening set 27-25, the Lady Seasiders rebounded by winning the next set to tie it up at one. Sinamoni Tonga led the Lady Seasiders in the set with eight kills that helped BYU–Hawaii get the 26-24 win. Though the Lady Seasiders would drop the next set, they would finish winning the fourth and fifth set to take the match 3-2.
The next two matches against Humbolt St. and Sonoma St. saw the Lady Seasiders get put under pressure. After falling to Humbolt St. 3-1, the Lady Seasiders looked to rebound against Sonoma St.Despite having dropped the first set 25-17, the Lady Seasiders showed their resilience by coming back and taking the second and third set. However, in the end it was Sonoma St. who would get the match win as they closed out the Lady Seasiders in the last two sets.
In the last match of the invitational against St. Martin, the Lady Seasiders looked their usual selves as they comfortable won the match in three straight sets. “I think there is a lot we still need to work on and improve from this first week,” said Head Coach Mona Ah-Hoy. “It was a tough week of matches with several of the top teams in our region.”
“Going forward we really need to focus on cleaning up the little mistakes we made this week and continue learning how to play more together,” said sophomore Leilani Adolpho from Laie, Hawaii. The Lady Seasiders will have their chance to improve quickly as they now go to the GNAC crossover tournament in Central Washington, where they will face tough region opponents: Northwest Nazarene, Western Washington, Alaska Anchorage, and Central Washington.