Her hitting days behind her, Saige Ka’aha’aina-Torres looks to set Texas up with a title

OMAHA, Neb. — Texas setter Saige Ka’aha’aina-Torres was recently asked what she loved and hated the most about her position.

The Longhorns senior loves the control that setting gives her. She's the volleyball team's quarterback. She finds the hot hitters on the court. Her work sets her teammates up for points.

At the same time, that control has a cost. Ka’aha’aina-Torres is admittedly an overthinker. She thinks of five different ways a scenario can play out and when those plans don’t work, the scramble to improvise can be taxing.

“Setting is a lot of thinking, that’s probably the one thing that I hate the most about it,” Ka’aha’aina-Torres said. “But you love it at the same time.”

On Thursday, she'll do what she always does on game day: find a Starbucks in Omaha and order a pumpkin cream cold brew. And she'll be wearing her lucky socks.

And then she'll get to thinking.

Ka’aha’aina-Torres and Texas face San Diego in the NCAA semifinals at the CHI Health Center in Omaha. If UT beats San Diego, the Longhorns will advance to play either Louisville or Pittsburgh in Saturday’s national championship match. Texas last won an NCAA title in 2012.

"Everyone's extremely excited to be here, but we know that just getting here is not our ultimate goal,” Texas middle blocker Asjia O'Neal said Wednesday.

Ka’aha’aina-Torres is No. 9 nationally with her average of 11.3 assists per game. She received an honorable mention nod on the AVCA All-America team this week.

Not bad for someone who didn’t initially expect to set in college.

Let's rewind a little. Ka’aha’aina-Torres, who grew up in Hawaii, began playing volleyball when she was 11 or 12. At first she preferred basketball and track. She didn't like how her forearm felt after she hit a volleyball, nor was she a fan of the shorts she had to wear. But her mother, Jennifer, wouldn't let her quit.

The sport eventually grew on Ka’aha’aina-Torres and she became one of Hawaii's top talents. She was the 2017 Honolulu Star-Advertiser's player of the year as a senior, and that came one season after she led ‘Iolani High to a state championship. She had committed to Missouri when she was a high school freshman.

Missouri recruited her as an opposite hitter. Ka’aha’aina-Torres had the statistics of a prized pin prospect — she averaged 4.05 kills per set at 'Iolani — but the six-foot standout didn't have the height.

So she decided that she'd rather set in college, and backed away from her pledge to Missouri. She signed with Utah, which wanted her as a setter.

Ka’aha’aina-Torres had set with her club team, so the position wasn't foreign to her. But she still had a lot to learn. Once she got to Utah, she leaned on assistant coach Dan Corotan, and Utah junior Bailey Choy, who had gone to high school with Ka’aha’aina-Torres, also was a resource.

Choy registered more than 1,000 assists for Utah in 2018, but Ka’aha’aina-Torres still contributed 3.42 assists per set. Not that there weren't hiccups for the freshman. Ka’aha’aina-Torres recalled a lot of illegal double hits and lifts — "It was not a good time in my volleyball career," she joked — and struggled to learn the complexity of running an offense.

"There's just a lot of things that go on when you're setting that I don't think people really realize because I definitely didn't think so," Ka’aha’aina-Torres said. "You really have to be a student of the game when you're learning no matter what level you're at.

"For me, that was like an ego thing. Like, 'I think I know volleyball. Wait no, I don't know anything about volleyball because I don't know what's going on when I have to set the ball.' Learning how to run an offense takes a lot of attention and focus."

Following the 2018 season, Choy transferred and Ka’aha’aina-Torres took the reins. As a sophomore, she guided Utah to the third round of the NCAA Tournament and set the school's single-season assists record. One year later, she led the Pac-12 by averaging 10.58 assists per game.

Ka’aha’aina-Torres, looking to contend for a national championship, joined the Longhorns ahead of the 2021 season as a graduate transfer. Texas coach Jerritt Elliott recruited her because he wanted someone to push his incumbent starter, Jhenna Gabriel.

Ka’aha’aina-Torres backed up Gabriel in 2021, then moved into the starting lineup this year. With Ka’aha’aina-Torres as its setter, Texas boasts an NCAA-best .339 hitting percentage.

"It's just really awesome when you can trust your setter to always try to better the ball and put you in the best position possible," outside hitter Logan Eggleston said. "She's done an amazing job."

Elliott has commended Ka’aha’aina-Torres' athleticism, improved confidence and hands. O'Neal said that Ka’aha’aina-Torres is good at taking constructive criticism and is always working to get better.

Ka’aha’aina-Torres works primarily with associate head coach David Hunt, who was hired in May after leading the Pepperdine men's volleyball team for five seasons. Ka’aha’aina-Torres said Hunt's ties to the men's game has given her a different outlook. She also has found herself studying more film both because of Hunt's insistence and her maturation.

"Before, I was kind of out there gunslinging," she said. "This year watching film, I feel like I understand the game so much more. It's way more important than I thought initially, so I'm glad that I finally learned that at some point. I had to."

On Thursday, Texas will face a San Diego team led by setter Gabby Blossom, who's averaging 11.39 assists per game and was described by Elliott on Wednesday as "elite."

Blossom was one of two setters to earn a first-team nod on the AVCA's All-America team Wednesday. There were three second-team setters and two third-teamers. Ka’aha’aina-Torres wasn't voted into any of those slots. (Texas did place Eggleston, O'Neal and libero Zoe Fleck on the first team while outside hitter Madisen Skinner was a third-team honoree.)

The omission wasn't a huge surprise. Only two UT setters have been recognized as AVCA All-Americans in the past decade. Last week, Elliott remarked that "it's been part of our program for a long time, is that people just assume that it's really easy to set Texas and you shouldn't get any awards because you've got all these great hitters around you."

For her part, Ka’aha’aina-Torres isn't that concerned with awards or acknowledgements. She's solely focused on achievements.

"At this point in my career, I have had so many great opportunities throughout my life," Ka’aha’aina-Torres said. "I can't even complain. As long as we win a national championship, I could care less whether my name was mentioned or not."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Saige Ka’aha’aina-Torres leads Texas into NCAA volleyball final four