EUGENE, Ore. — The chilly weather outside Matthew Knight Arena crept onto the wrong side of the net for the Big West Conference champions.
In its 31st consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament, Hawaii picked a tough time to go cold on the court, struggling offensively with its serve-pass game in a 25-15, 25-18, 25-22 sweep at the hands of No. 5 seed TCU in the first round Thursday.
Hawaii (21-10), which failed to win a set in the tournament for the first time since it was swept in the first round in 1997, never could quite get into a rhythm against the Horned Frogs (22-7), who advanced to the second round for the third consecutive season.
TCU’s All-America senior outside hitter Melanie Parra put down a match-high 24 kills and Jalyn Gibson had nine kills, four blocks and three aces, with the last one bringing about match point in the third set.
Hawaii coach Robyn Ah Mow called timeout trailing 24-22 and UH came out of the huddle with a play setting junior Caylen Alexander, the Big West Player of the Year. Alexander hit out for one of her five errors and the season was over.
“Our serve-pass game was not on point today. Making too may errors,” Ah Mow said. “We already knew that Parra was going to get her kills. She’s an awesome player. We just gotta kind of slow her down and then we knew we just had to get them out of system.”
The Rainbow Wahine were able to do that at times, but the Horned Frogs seemed to win most of the long points, with Parra doing damage from all over the court.
The closest set was the final one after Hawaii fell behind two sets to none.
TCU answered a five-point Hawaii run with five consecutive points to take a 12-9 lead, but Hawaii showed more fight in rallying back to tie the set five more times.
Stella Adeyemi put down one of her six kills to tie it at 21-all and Parra and Alexander traded kills to keep the match tied.
TCU ended the set on a 3-0 run after scoring the final seven points of the second set after it was tied at 18-all.
“There were a lot of emotions out there and I think we let them control us,” said sophomore Tali Hakas, who had eight kills, 10 digs and a solo block. “We can do better and it’s just frustrating knowing that we can bring more out there.”
TCU joined UC Santa Barbara as the only teams to sweep Hawaii this season.
The Horned Frogs hit .297 and outblocked Hawaii 10-4. They also held Alexander, who entered the match third in the nation averaging more than five kills per set, to a team-high nine on 35 swings while hitting .114.
UH finished with a season-low 37 kills.
“That’s a really good Hawaii team and they forced a good version of us today. This was a scary one for us,” TCU coach Jason Williams said. “Alexander is great … one of the top hitters in the country. We schemed a little bit, but I think we won the serve and pass battle and they were just having to set her some not perfect balls that we were able to defend, and I think because the games kind of got quicker at the end of each set, we were able to not let her get into rhythm.”
In the final matches of their UH careers, Hawaii senior setter Kate Lang finished with her 51st double-double of 27 assists and 12 digs to go along with four kills in eight attempts.
Senior libero Tayli Ikenaga had a match-high 16 digs and served Hawaii’s only ace of the match.
“Definitely losing sucks and I know the we could have went out there much better, and like Coach Rob said, we definitely shot ourselves in the foot,” Ikenaga said. “I don’t think this game defines us as team, as whole. We definitely had our ups and downs.”
Parra established herself from the outset with six kills, five digs, three block assists and an ace in the opening set.
Hakas had four kills in seven swings with six digs for Hawaii, which led 7-5 on a TCU hitting error before the Horned Frogs ripped off the next six points for the deciding run in the set.
An Alexander kill out of the media timeout made it 15-12 before TCU scored the next three points, started by one of Hawaii’s two service errors.
UH hit .205 in the opening set, but TCU hit at a .368 clip with three errors and four blocks.
Hawaii used an 8-3 run in the second set to tie the match at 15-all and prompt the Horned Frogs to use their first timeout.
Adeyemi put down back-to-backs kills for the fourth tie of the set at 18-all before the Horned Frogs closed on a 7-0 run to go up two sets to none.
The last four points were Hawaii hitting errors.
“Our serving I thought we just kind of let up on the line for a little bit,” Ah Mow said.
Hawaii’s 10 losses this season were the first time it reached double digits since going 19-11 in 1993.
