A pair of University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa women’s volleyball players garnered weekly honors from the Big West Conference after helping UH sweep UC Davis and UC Riverside to open conference play. Sophomore Kate Lang was named Big West Setter of the Week for the first time and outside hitter Caylen Alexander earned her second Freshman of the Week honor of the year.
This is Lang’s third career weekly conference honor, after twice being named Freshman of the Week in 2021. This is the first year The Big West has a Setter of the Week award.
Lang orchestrated the UH offense to a .356 hitting percentage this past weekend. She dished out a match-high 36 assists to go along with seven digs, a block, a kill and an ace against the Aggies to open the weekend. The sophomore followed a night later with a match-high 39 assists against UC Riverside and had UH firing on offense for a season-best .414 team hitting percentage, which is the highest hitting percentage since September 29, 2017 when UH hit .494 vs. Cal State Fullerton. Lang averaged 12.5 assists per set in the two matches. Overall, she leads The Big West with 9.57 assists per set this season.
Rookie Alexander helped power the offense to UH’s two wins. The outside hitter caught fire against UC Riverside, pounding a match-high 15 kills with no errors in 27 attacks for a career-best .556 hitting percentage. Alexander pummeled seven kills in the third set alone—including five in a span of seven points in the middle of the final frame.
For the weekend, Alexander put down 23 kills, averaging 3.83 kills per set with a .375 hitting percentage in six frames of play and also recorded a career-best four blocks and added eight kills and two digs in the win over UC Davis. She also recorded a service ace in each match and now has at least one ace in nine of UH‘s 10 matches played. Her 0.48 service ace/set average ranks her third in the Big West Conference.
