By Tiff Wells
1. Vegas Baby!
On July 30th, the Mountain West Conference announced that the four-team women’s volleyball championship would be hosted by UNLV at the Pavilion during Thanksgiving Week. A couple of weeks later, the MW released its preseason poll. UTEP, UC Davis, Grand Canyon, Wyoming. Hawai`i was picked to finish fifth in the 10-team conference. Bulletin board material maybe? New conference, a new coaching staff that was hired less than 100 days prior to the start of the season and with eight returning from a 12-17 2025 season, no one really knew what to expect from this edition of Rainbow Wahine Volleyball. To most, fifth sounded about right. It just sounded odd that for a program with so much history and tradition, they were placed in the middle of their conference. UH solidified its 2026 schedule and among the roadtrips was one to Las Vegas as the Rainbow Wahine hosted the Lucky Aces Women’s Volleyball Invitational at the Orleans Arena. With the Bows taking a 2-1 Invitational record back home with them, the thought process was to be back in the 702 in two plus months to play in the conference tournament. MW play started at home with two 3-0 wins over New Mexico. We now head into senior week and the final homestand where UH is unbeaten at home in conference play (8-0 overall and hasn’t dropped a set in the process). Along the way as the Rainbow Wahine continued to focus on the process, they took both matches at GCU by 3-0 scores, won the series at Wyoming (3-2, 3-1) and split the UC Davis series. Before night two against Nevada on Saturday, Hawai`i learned they had officially clinched a bid into the conference tournament with UNLV’s loss at Wyoming. With their second win against Nevada, the Bows punctuated the night with a 25-5 third set victory en route to clinching a share of the regular season conference title. The magic number to clinch the regular season title and the number one seed is now at 1 (one UH win or one UC Davis loss). To quote Miliana Sylvester from that September roadtrip, “Vegas Baby!” Bows are indeed Vegas bound during Feast Week and with UH being the first (and only team so far) to qualify, you the Rainbow Wahine have a chance to start buying tickets for the 2026 Credit Union 1 Mountain West Volleyball Championship presented by Palms Casino Resort. Get your tickets now at https://unlvtickets.evenue.net/events/MWCVB and get them quick as The Pavilion only holds 2500.
2. Purfect Purser
We knew coming into 2026 that there wasn’t much depth in the middle blocker position. Just one (Miliana Sylvester) returned from the 2025 season. A second (Rachel Purser) was part of the 2026 freshmen recruiting class and a third (Marnie Ursem) was added from the transfer portal during the May period. The Las Vegas native won the second middle position during fall camp and has been a key figure in the UH starting lineup as she’s started 23 of the 25 matches this season. Whether it’s coming from High School to College or transferring up to Division I, everyone says the speed of the game is the first big adjustment that takes the most time to get used to. Her breakout weekend was during the Outrigger Invitational where No. 19 went for a career-high 10 kills on 18 errorless swings against LMU and recorded a career-high eight blocks against UC San Diego. As the kids say now, “everyone eats.” On night one against Nevada, five UH players notched five or more kills. That included Purser as she scored eight kills on 13 errorless swings and hit .615. Four players had seven or more kills on night two versus Nevada as Purser hit .700 after seven kill performance on 10 errorless swings. For the series, Purser went 15-0-23 and hit .658. In four matches against schools from her home state, the middle blocker had 24 kills on 52 swings and added 11 blocks. In three of those four matches, she didn’t commit a hitting error. Maybe conference freshman of the week honors when they get announced on Monday?
3. 300 For No.12
She only played one year of high school volleyball in Hawai`i and those that followed Division II volleyball got a chance to see her play while with University Lab. Recruited by North Carolina, Dayton, Long Beach State and Dayton, Miliana Sylvester knew there was one school for her and once Hawai`i came calling, the recruiting process ended. She started her first collegiate match and has started every match ever since. Big West All-Freshman honors in 2024, All-Big West Honorable Mention in 2025. As a freshman, the Aina Haina native led the team with 91 total blocks and was second on the team a year ago with 95 total blocks. Heading into the Air Force series, the junior has recorded 22 more total blocks (117) than a year ago while playing in 14 fewer sets (90) than 2025 (104). With her third block on night two against Nevada, Sylvester recorded her 300th career block. The junior leads the Mountain West in both total blocks (117) and blocks per set (1.30). Entering the Air Force series, she’s roughly 120 blocks away from entering UH’s top 10. Her blocking numbers continue to go up and she’s a main reason as to why UH tops the MW in opponents’ hitting percentage (.140) and is second in blocks/set (2.41).
4. Hating To Lose
After losing 3-0 at UC Davis on Halloween night, Panna Ratkai mentioned of how much this team hates to lose. This team has been able to bounce back quite nicely as they are 2-1 following a loss. Both of those wins have been convincing 3-0 victories. They’ve played 14 Mountain West conference matches and at 13-1, UH has dropped only seven sets in conference play. They hate losing matches, hate losing sets…they hate just losing points. This was quite evident in Set 2 on the second night when UH trailed 5-0, called a timeout and then proceeded to score 25 of the final 36 points of the set to win 25-16. They then won 25 of the 30 points scored in Set 3 to win it 25-5. That set score was their most dominant since 2018 when Hawai`i allowed just three points in a set against Cal State Fullerton. After losing the dig battle 47-43 on night one against Nevada, one could say the Bows took that personally as they out dug the Wolf Pack 37-28 on night two. Victoria Leyva had 18 digs in the first match and added 13 on night two as she helped the defense hold Nevada in hitting .094. For Leyva, it’s now nine consecutive matches with double-digit digs. It’s also the eighth opponent this season that has been held under a .100 hitting percentage. Even with that big lead in the third set, UH continued to keep the foot on the pedal as Cameron Holcomb was all over the court picking up digs and covering her hitters. Also can’t forget her 11-0 service run as UH scored 12 straight to put that third set (and match) on ice.
5. Ász Ratkai
In Hungarian, ász translates to ace. And well, there were a lot of them over the weekend from Panna Ratkai. She was just in the zone from the service line. In this series against Nevada, she had 38 total serves in the six sets played, Ratkai errored just once. In night two alone, she had a 6-0 run in the opening set and went on a 7-0 run in set two. She tied her UH season-high of five aces on night one and then added four more in the second match. For the first time in her collegiate career, her parents got to see her play in person. They got to witness their daughter have one of the best and most efficient serving performances over a two-match series in quite some time. And they will stay on island this coming week as Hawai`i will play their final two home matches of 2026 and witness senior night in person. This senior is now second in the Mountain West in both service aces (40) and aces/set (.45) as she trails UTEP’s Lauren Perry (49 aces, .49 aces/set) in both categories. We also can’t bury the fact that on night two, UH had their best serving match of the season (eight aces, two errors) as they served in bounds at .973. With 40 on the season, she’s 16 shy of tying Joyce Ka’apuni (1983) and Aneli Cubi-Otineru (2009) for fifth most in a single-season.
6. One Last Homestand
Outside of the first match in the Central Arkansas series, every home match this season has drawn over 3,200 in house. The eighth man has made their presence felt here on the island all season long. The Rainbow Wahine continue to feed off the energy of the crowd as the Bows are now 14-2 at home this season, including a perfect 8-0 in conference…and have yet to drop a set at home in conference play. They take a 32-set home win streak into Thursday’s match against Air Force. Night two against UNLV saw the highest crowd of the season, in both tickets issued (7,858) and in house (6,603) that propelled the home team to victory. For this past series against Nevada: 12807 tickets were issued with nearly 10,000 in house (9,958). With the magic number to clinch the regular season title outright and conference tournament 1-seed down to one (either a UC Davis loss earlier Thursday at Wyoming or a UH win at home against AFA), Thursday night on the island could be a very special one for this program. And with this being the penultimate home match of the season, you have a chance to take part in the evening and be there in person. There are senior nights and then there are senior nights in Hawai`i. At any level of sport here in the 50th state, no one honors their seniors like this state. If you’ve never been to one or haven’t been to a game all year, make it a point to attend a senior night. Since the arena opened up in 1994, there have been 49 sellouts and for women’s volleyball, they’ve accounted for 19 of them. The last came on senior night in 2019 against Long Beach State. With how special this team has been all year long, you the fan have a chance to help #PackTheStan and attempt to give this program their 20th sellout on Friday night. When you do show up on Friday night, wear your best white for the #WhiteOut and show your aloha for Panna Ratkai, Leilani Lopez and Tali Hakas. UH has always been at the top or among the national leaders when it comes to women’s volleyball attendance. 2026 has been no different as they trail only Nebraska in total attendance (141,369 to 86,733). In terms of average attendance, UH (5,782/match) is behind only Nebraska (10,875/match), Wisconsin (7,071/match) and Tennessee (6,302/match)
7. Signing Day On The Horizon
A bonus takeaway here as National Signing Day is this coming Wednesday. It’s always an exciting time to see seniors in high school sign their intent to the college of their choice and post to their social media. When it’s all said and done, Hawai`i expects to have three freshmen make up the first recruiting class for Head Coach Joshua Walker. The first recruit in the class is Blake Borgquist. She’s a 6’1” Opposite/Middle Blocker from Laguna Beach, California and attends Laguna Beach High School. She plays club for Tstreet Volleyball Club. Jacyee Mack is the second recruit in this class. She’s a 6’1”-6’2” Outside Hitter from San Diego, California and plays club with WAVE Volleyball Club. It’s the same club that Cameron Holcomb played for and is the club program where former Rainbow Warrior Scott Hartley now coaches at. Mack is a 5-star recruit, a top 40 recruit according to Prep Dig and had given her verbal to Baylor before flipping to UH once Head Coach Joshua Walker took over. Her plan is to graduate a semester early and enroll at UH for the 2027 spring semester. These first two are expected to sign on Wednesday. We say eventually the class will be three. Eventually that third recruit will be Lexi Van Eekeren, a 5’10” Setter/Opposite from Naperville, Illinois. Plays high school for Nazareth Academy and club for Adversity. Hawai`i volleyball fans remember her older brother Jackson who was a backup setter for the Rainbow Warriors from 2017 through 2021 and is now an Assistant Coach at Tennessee Tech. It can take some time for the paperwork to be received so don’t fret if you don’t see social media postings right away. And as always, you just never know what comes with the first transfer portal (which opens on Sunday December 6th, the Sunday after the first and second rounds of the D1 Women’s Volleyball Championship), then the spring transfer portal window and of course, those players that international.
Photos: Lori McKeown
