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BRUCE ASATO / BASATO@STARADVERTISER.COM
Hawaii middle blocker Olivia Magill hit past UC Irvine's Aspen Potter in the second set Saturday night at Stan Sheriff Center.
Last week’s two road losses to unranked teams has Hawaii out of the AVCA Top 25 coaches volleyball poll for the second time this season as well as led to a big drop in the RPI.
The Rainbow Wahine (12-5, 4-2 Big West) dropped from No. 21 to the “also receiving votes” category following the three-set loss at Cal State Northridge and the five-set defeat at Long Beach State. Hawaii received a program-low 17 points, which puts the Rainbow Wahine outside of the Top 25 and behind Northwestern (58), Long Beach State (40), Colorado (38), CSUN (21 and Marquette (20).
Hawaii’s RPI (Rattings Percentage Index) aslo dropped from 17 to 25. The RPI is used to help seed the NCAA tournament with the top 16 given the opportunity to host the first and second rounds. The Rainbow Wahine were at 17 in last week’s first rankings; CSUN moved up from 20 to 16 and Long Beach State, which beat CSUN two weeks ago, went from 38 to 32.
Prior to this season, Hawaii had been ranked in every weekly poll since 1981 except for the final four weeks of the 1992 season. The Wahine finished 15-12 that year and missed the NCAA tournament for the first and only time in program history.
Hawaii was unranked this season in the Sept. 15 poll but return the next week at No. 25.
Nationally the top four teams remained the same led by top-ranked Stanford (16-0) with 56 first-place votes. No. 2 Texas (13-0) received three votes and No. 3 Washington (17-0) one vote. Florida State (17-0) stayed at No. 4.
