HONOLULU — Following the SDSU/USD Tournament in San Diego, the West Virginia volleyball team travels to Honolulu, for a trio of matches at the Outrigger Hotels and Resorts Volleyball Challenge, at Manoa this weekend.
WVU (4-2) opens play against host No. 18 Hawaii (6-0) at 1 a.m. Friday before taking on UCLA (3-2) in a 10:45 p.m. tilt that evening. West Virginia will conclude the three-day tournament Saturday, taking on Utah Valley (2-5) at 10 p.m. matchup. All three matches will be played inside the Stan Sheriff Center.
The Mountaineers match against the Rainbow Warriors will be streamed live on bigwest.tv, and live stats for all three matches can be found on wvusports.com.
Fifth-year coach Reed Sunahara is a Hawaii native and competed for the men’s volleyball team at UCLA and was a two-time All-American and three-time NCAA champion. He also started his coaching career with the Bruins.
“It’s great to bring my team to Hawaii and show them how I grew up,” Sunahara said. “I love sharing the Aloha spirit with all of them and I can’t wait to play three quality teams in this atmosphere, in front of the Hawaiian crowd. It will be amazing for our program and I hope this experience creates life-lasting memories for them.”
Looking ahead, the Mountaineers will return to Morgantown for a three-match tournament from Sept. 20-21, at the WVU Coliseum. West Virginia welcomes Duquesne, Eastern Kentucky and Navy to the Mountaineer Invitational, as the squad squares off with Duquesne on Sept. 20 before facing Eastern Kentucky on Sept. 21. Sept. 21’s finale will be a showdown between the Mountaineers and Navy, a team that qualified for the NCAA tournament last year.
