Evan Silberstein feels he did what he could, while he could with the Hawaii beach volleyball program.

It’s now someone else’s turn to steward it. UH acting athletic director Lois Manin announced Wednesday that the school’s four-year head beach coach has not been retained.

Silberstein, who had been on staff with the program for 11 of its 14 seasons of existence, led UH to the NCAA Tournament in each of his first three seasons as head coach. But the Rainbow Wahine just submitted their first losing season (14-21) in beach volleyball’s era as a fully sanctioned NCAA sport, since 2016.

It is the first head coaching change made under Manin, the former UH associate athletic director and Senior Woman Administrator who took over the department’s head position from the fired Craig Angelos on Dec. 1.

“We have decided to move in a different direction with our beach volleyball program,” Manin said in a statement. “We appreciate everything Evan has given to this program as both an assistant and head coach and we wish him well.”

In her five months heading up the athletic department, Manin has extended football coach Timmy Chang and women’s indoor volleyball coach Robyn Ah Mow. She gave a statement of confidence but no extension to men’s basketball coach Eran Ganot, who is entering the final year of his contract in 2025-26.

As of early Thursday morning, Manin had not responded to a Spectrum News question about beach volleyball program expectations.

Per UH, Silberstein’s three-year contract is set to expire on May 31. UH indoor assistant Nick Castello will serve as interim head coach until a full replacement is hired, UH said.

Silberstein, the fourth head coach in program history, was 89-59 in his four years. He was an assistant for seven years prior, serving under Jeff Hall for six and then Angelica Ljungqvist for one. When Ljungqvist left, he became interim head coach and then had then interim tag removed heading into the 2022 season.

Silberstein told Spectrum News in a phone interview that he felt good about helping build the program for more than a decade. UH went to the postseason tournament held annually in Gulf Shores, Ala., in eight of 10 seasons (not including the COVID-abbreviated 2020 campaign) while he was on staff.

UH won the Big West title as recently as 2024. The 2025 squad was young, he acknowledged, but it was a group he said he thought was on “a positive trajectory.” UH started off with a series of losses against a stacked field in the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Classic in February and was not able to become a Big West contender by April. 

Evan Silberstein at the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Classic at Queen’s Beach in February. (Spectrum News/Brian McInnis)

“The track record is really just, I think, something to be very proud of,” Silberstein said. “So I’m grateful to all the athletes, other people that have come in and contributed, so many of the volunteers and people around the program that helped to make it what it is. I’m grateful to have been able to do everything I could for it. You know, I would have loved to do more, and was ready to do so. And those are decisions someone else gets to make about who’s next. So I wish them all the best.”

But, he cautioned, the new coach faces a much tougher competitive landscape than even five years ago as power programs have invested heavily, erasing the head start UH had on many of them — a gap that was especially large when beach was still known as sand volleyball for its first four years as an NCAA emerging sport from 2012 to 2015.

“What we’ve seen in the last few years is just a lot of facilities (investment),” Silberstein said. “So when you’re training on two courts (like at the Ching Complex) compared to five, same amount of athletes, that’s like a big factor right now.”

Many power conference beach programs have assembled three full-time staff members, he said. Keeping his own staff intact was more akin to playing in quicksand. 

“Those are the hardest things about what my job was like, keeping it all up with what we got,” he said.

Silberstein, a Long Island, N.Y., native who had a past stop at Punahou School, said Hawaii can help its cause as a state by sanctioning beach volleyball as a high school sport. The UH program has tried to compensate for the lack of homegrown beach-focused players by hitting up the Wahine indoor program for crossover talent, but there have been diminishing returns with that approach, he said.

“We’re not anywhere near tapping the resource locally,” Silberstein said. “That’s where it really needs to get done. Maybe this will be my opportunity to teach people about what’s really needed in our community, which is high school and juniors beach volleyball everywhere.

“Then the University of Hawaii has a chance to compete, because we can pull a better resource locally. Right now, we just can’t, and that’s keeping Texas past us, Arizona past us, Florida past us, certainly California past us.”

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.

HUNTINGTON BEACH — The Huntington Beach boys volleyball team gained momentum in the middle of the first set against Newport Harbor in an opening-round, pool-play match in the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs on Wednesday.

The Oilers, the No. 2 seed, kept it up through the second set, faltered a bit in the third and then took control back in the fourth, defeating the No. 6 Sailors, 25-14, 25-19, 20-25, 25-20, at Huntington Beach High School.

Huntington Beach (34-3), one of three Sunset League teams in the Division 1 bracket, will host Redondo on Tuesday, May 6. The Seahawks defeated No. 3 Loyola on Wednesday in three sets.

Newport Harbor (13-17) will take on the Cubs on Wednesday at Loyola.

“They’ve been hot as of late,” Huntington Beach coach Craig Pazanti said of the Sailors. “So, coming in I think we got off to a really good start. I don’t think we could do anything wrong in that first set. And then the second set kind of carried over. We took a lead at around 12-12 and kind of sustained it. And then they came out on fire in the third.

“That’s the thing: You can never stop playing. Anyone can come back at any time. All eight teams in Division 1 are great. So, credit to them that they didn’t give up after being down 2-0 and they came out and won that third set.”

The Oilers defeated the Sailors in their two Sunset League matches by scores of 3-1.

Huntington Beach got almost an equal number of points from its outside and opposite side hitters and from the middle hitter.

Logan Hutnick and Colin Choi had 17 kills and 14 kills, respectively, for the Oilers, mostly from the outside and Ben Arguello scored most of his 15 kills from the middle.

J.P. Wardy and Henry Koch had 11 kills each for the Sailors.

“We truly came out and wanted to win,” Hutnick said. “And they didn’t give up either, you know. They came back. They definitely put up a fight winning that third set, but I’m really happy with how we did today.”

The Oilers were leading 9-8 in the first set and then went on a 16-6 run to pull away and win the set.

Newport Harbor tried to keep it close in the second set and led 15-14 when the Oilers went on an 11-4 run to take a 2-0 lead.

The Sailors built a 10-4 lead in the third set and never looked back.

“We didn’t play very well,” Pazanti told his team after the third said. “We stopped passing the ball and that’s going to take us out of what we’re trying to do offensively. So, I said, let that one go. The cool part about volleyball is it’s 0-0 to start the fourth set. So, let’s just start over just like it’s the beginning of the match and let’s take it from here.

“Even though we’re pretty young, it’s a pretty experienced group as far as varsity experience and playing at a pretty high level. So, I’ve got faith in these guys. So hopefully we can just sustain a little run here.”

El Camino College beach volleyball coach and three-time Olympic medalist April Ross was named coach of USA Volleyball’s Beach National Teams, the organization announced Monday, April 28.

Ross, 42, who was hired at ECC last August, begins her new role on May 12 supporting Beach National Teams’ coaches in their professional development.

She will also work to enhance the training and performance of American athletes on the international level ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

“I’m looking forward to getting back to that level and being able to challenge myself to figure out how to help these athletes find very small competitive advantages that can help them do better,” Ross said.

She will be based in Torrance at the Beach National Team Training Center and will report directly to Sean Scott, the director of the team.

“[I’m] just working to working towards the LA 28 games and putting our teams in a position to win medals,” Ross said.

Ross secured a gold medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo (2021) with Alix Klineman, silver with Jen Kessy in London (2012) and bronze with Kerri Walsh-Jennings (2016).

Beach Volleyball Duo Prepares to Make a Splash at NCAA Championship 

Allanis Navas and Sofia Izuzquiza both speak Spanish … technically. 

When this duo stepped onto the sand together for the first time as partners for the
TCU Women’s Beach Volleyball team, though, what came out was a cacophony of Spain
Spanish, Boricua Spanish and desperation Spanican.   

“There were some funny moments for sure,” Horned Frogs coach Hector Gutierrez said
with a chuckle. “Puerto Ricans have different ways. There is always a word or expression
that I do not understand. You’d hear ‘What? What do you mean?’ during a match even
though they are speaking the same language.”  

Navas is a 5-foot-4 senior from Puerto Rico, Izuzquiza a 6-foot freshman from Spain
and, when playing together, they are 22-2 from TCU.  

Socia. Dominante. Molar. This senior-freshman duo has been every translation of dominant
since first being paired together in March. Yes, they have been playing together less
than two months. In that time, they:  

• Helped TCU beat No. 5 Stanford, No. 9 Long Beach State and No. 1 UCLA in a span of
  two days at the Death Valley Invitational in late March. 

• Helped TCU win the Big 12 Championship in the first year it was awarded, joining women’s
  soccer, women’s basketball and men’s tennis to give the Horned Frogs four conference
  championships in 2024-25. 

The NCAA Championship is this weekend and the No. 2-seeded Horned Frogs are counting
on this duo.    

“I didn’t know her too much before she came here, just that she was one of the best
players in Spain,” Navas said. “When Hector told me I was going to be playing with
her, and here we are … Sofia and me, we are more than a partnership. We are more friends,
with really good energy outside and inside the court.” 

Navas and Izuzquiza played together for the first time on March 7, 2025—a double line
in a box score marking the occasion: Allanis Navas and Sofia Izuzquiza (TCU) def. Bailey Higgins and Carra Sassack (FSU)
21-18, 21-14. 

This had not always been the plan. Navas had competed internationally with, spent
2024 trying to qualify for the Paris Olympics with and transferred to TCU this year
to play with Horned Frogs senior, Maria Gonzalez.  

They played together, and well, but Gutierrez had an idea to try Navas with Izuzquiza.
They have been getting better and better right through to the Big 12 Championship
held on TCU’s campus. 

“I have never experienced anything like that,” Izuzquiza said. “I’m so thankful for
the team we have, for a championship on our home court, and for coach.” 

Gutierrez has a knack for building things. He arrived at TCU in 2016, tasked with
starting a beach volleyball team from scratch in a place with no beach and no real
history. He was undeterred. He recruited talent, built teams, had a vision and never
stopped believing.  

The program really took off in 2021. The Frogs made their first-ever NCAA appearance
that year and have been back every year since, including reaching the Final Four in
2023. There have been 36 home-match win streaks, No. 1 rankings and so many individual
awards in this span but there was something about winning the Big 12 Championship. 

“Looking back to how we started and where we are right now. To have a conference championship
and to be able to host on campus, this is what I wanted from the beginning,” Gutierrez
admitted. “And then to have it come down to one court at home, I’m still emotional
about it.” 

Gonzalez, as well as Daniela Alvarez and Tania Moreno (who competed for Spain in the
2024 Olympics), have been around for almost half of that stretch. They are seniors
on this team, trying to do what, in nine years of NCAA Women’s Beach Volleyball Championships,
only USC and UCLA have been able to: Win it all. 

“You never know who is going win,” Navas said. “We just have to keep with what we’ve
been doing.” 

It should be noted that Navas and Izuzquiza both speak beautiful English but, when
on the sand together, they still sometimes revert to “Spanican” while playing.  

Amigas. Campaneros. Teammates. Friends. In every translation.