{"id":229817,"date":"2026-02-23T12:46:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T22:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=229817"},"modified":"2026-02-23T12:46:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T22:46:38","slug":"rainbow-swimming-and-diving-conference-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2026\/02\/23\/rainbow-swimming-and-diving-conference-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"Rainbow Swimming and Diving sweeps Big West titles, earns eight conference awards"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"Steve<\/p>\n

The University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at M\u0101noa swimming and diving teams<\/a> delivered a dominant showing at the Big West Championships, sweeping the men\u2019s and women\u2019s team titles and capturing eight major conference awards, announced by the league on February 20.<\/p>\n

Coach of the Year<\/h2>\n

In his second season leading the program, Head Coach Steve Allnutt was named both Big West Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s Coach of the Year after guiding the Rainbow Warriors and Wahine to conference crowns. The men scored 780 points with 22 podium finishes, including 12 gold medals, while the women scored 798 points with 20 medal performances and six event victories. The sweep marked the fourth time in program history that both teams claimed conference titles in the same season.<\/p>\n

Allnutt also coached three swimmers to NCAA<\/abbr> automatic qualifying standards and oversaw three Big West record-breaking swims. His dual honor is the 12th overall coaching award in program history and the fourth time a Hawaiʻi<\/span> coach has earned Coach of the Year for both squads in the same season.<\/p>\n

Men\u2019s Swimmer of the Year<\/h2>\n

Leading the way in swimming was Karol Ostrowski, who was named Big West Men\u2019s Swimmer of the Year for the first time. Ostrowski recorded seven podium finishes, winning six gold medals. He posted NCAA<\/abbr> automatic qualifying times in the 50 free, 100 free and 100 back, breaking his own conference record in the 100 free. He becomes Hawaiʻi<\/span>\u2019s first conference swimmer of the year since 2020.<\/p>\n

Diving Coach of the Year<\/h2>\n

Diving coach Brandon Blaisdell also swept the Men\u2019s and Women\u2019s Diving Coach of the Year awards for the second straight season. Under his direction, Rainbow divers swept the diving competition at the championships, combining for five gold, four silver and five bronze medals, along with three conference records.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s Diver of the Year<\/h2>\n

Macie Wheeler successfully defended her Women\u2019s Diver of the Year title, winning the 1-meter and 3-meter events and setting a Big West record in the 1-meter. Freshmen Keira Chandler and Oliver Wignall claimed the conference\u2019s Freshman Diver of the Year honors on the women\u2019s and men\u2019s sides, respectively.<\/p>\n

Overall, the team placed 27 student-athletes on the All-Big West team for a combined 69 all-conference honors. The Rainbow Warriors accounted for 12 selections and 37 honors, while the Rainbow Wahine added 15 members and 32 honors, capping a historic championship performance for the program.<\/p>\n

To see the full list of awardees, visit Hawaiiathletics.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rainbows swept the Big West Championships, winning both team titles and eight major awards after standout performances in the pool and on the boards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":229818,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1362],"tags":[58,1564,9,550],"class_list":["post-229817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-swimming-and-diving","tag-uh-manoa","tag-manoa-athletics","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/manoa-swim-dive-award.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229817"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229833,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229817\/revisions\/229833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}