New season, new beginning

In Maureen Cole’s second year as Hawaii head coach, everything is new again. The United States has won its first Olympic gold in women’s water polo. Rainbow Wahine water polo is diving into the Big West Conference. All-American Monika Eggens is back after trying to help Canada qualify for the Games.

Today, the eighth-ranked Wahine (6-5) finally have their first home match. They play 18th-ranked Michigan at 6 p.m. in the Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex. The Wolverines (4-9) bring assistant coach Betsey Armstrong, a 2005 Michigan graduate who was the U.S. goalie in London and Beijing.

Second-ranked Stanford plays here four times during spring break. The Cardinal will bring in Maggie Steffens, FINA’s Best Female Water Polo Player of 2012. The freshman scored 21 goals for the U.S. in London, hitting 78 percent of her shots. She also knocked Canada out of the Olympics by scoring the winning goal in a 27-26 U.S. victory at the Pan Am Games. It was the sport’s longest game.

Top-ranked and unbeaten USC, which ended Stanford’s 15-match winning streak, will also be here at the end of the month, when seven of the NCAA’s best teams come to play Hawaii and each other. The Big West championship — Hawaii’s lone shot at reaching the NCAA Championship — is April 26-28 at UC Irvine.

The Wahine open their inaugural Big West season at seventh-ranked Irvine next week. The Anteaters have won every Big West title, and NCAA berth, but Cole believes the conference is up for grabs. All eight teams are ranked in the Top 20.

"Irvine is definitely the team to beat," Cole says. "(Sixth-ranked) San Diego State is like us, it was in the MPSF and it is strong. (Ninth-ranked) Long Beach State is strong. Davis (No. 14) has beat us and is always a tough game. It’s not going to be easy, but we have as good a shot as any other team, a very realistic shot at going to NCAAs, and that’s exciting."

So is the return of Eggens, now a 6-foot-2 senior who leads the team in scoring (29 goals) and was named Big West Player of the Week her first week back, scoring 19 goals in four games.

Cole, the last cut on the 2004 U.S. Olympic team, characterizes Eggens as having "one of the best shots in the world," but there is much more.

"She is one of the most competitive people I’ve ever met," Cole says. "She wants to win so bad and she works so hard. She’s awesome."

That Eggens returned was no surprise. Her game and her confidence soared while she was home training in Canada, but she never wavered from her plan to come back and get her degree.

The senior was surprised to "come back to a brand new team" full of new faces.

"It’s exciting because I see a lot of potential," she says. "It’s great with new international girls, local girls, American girls from everywhere. I’m pretty excited about the group we have. We have the ability to go to NCAAs if we work hard together."

One of those international players is freshman Paula Chillida Esforzado, from Barcelona. She was the last cut from the Spanish Olympic team.

"Last day I went home," Esforzado recalls wistfully, "and the rest went to Olympics."

She has brought a different look to the right side of the pool and is second in scoring with 22 goals. Senior Amarens Genee, from the Netherlands, is next with 16. Caity Lopes da Silva and Danielle Lewis (both from New Zealand) each have 12.

Cole’s focus now, however, is not offense. The Wahine have been focused on defense recently, trying to jump-start a quick and slick counter-attack she hopes will become the team’s trademark. She brought in former teammate Serela Kay — the two won an NCAA title together at UCLA in 2000 — to help her make the transition.

"There are a lot of new faces," Cole says. "It’s a different sort of approach because being in the Big West, everything comes down to the Big West tournament. That’s the team that goes to NCAAs. Now we’re trying new things, new defenses, new personnel, finding what works and what doesn’t. It’s kinda neat because we don’t have everything riding on our first few tournaments, so it can be a learning process."

Today, the Wahine will learn how they play at home, against a team that beat them last year.

"We feel like we wait all year to have the few home games we have," Eggens says. "Everyone is ready for it."