Wahine swagger is back

Hawaii’s volleyball season is four months old as it opens the NCAA tournament Friday at the Stan Sheriff Center. So far, three distinct Rainbow Wahine teams have appeared.

Hawaii was smoking out of the chute, shocking defending national champion Texas in the season opener. A loss to San Diego did little to dim the glow of a 15-1 start and Dave Shoji’s party the night he became his sport’s winningest coach.

UC Santa Barbara burst the bubble, ending the Wahine’s NCAA-best 77-match regular-season conference winning streak. The Gauchos exposed offensive problems that Cal State Northridge and UC Davis quickly exploited. The Wahine, who had four regular-season losses in 16 years of WAC membership, lost three of four in the Big West.

That forced Shoji to tweak the lineup, leaving 6-foot-3 freshman hitter Nikki Taylor in all six rotations. Eight wins later, Taylor’s hitting percentage is up over .300 and she is delivering an extra kill per set.

Hawaii’s offense has better balance and more options, and the swarm of blockers who followed All-American Emily Hartong has had to scatter. The team’s ballhandling has also improved, in part because of Taylor’s surprisingly graceful play and extended stays by back-row specialist Sarah Mendoza.

"At the very beginning, during double days, I was absolutely petrified," Taylor said. "I still feel pressure, of course …but I especially feel pressure now that I’m in the back row. Before I only felt pressure in the front row; now it’s all the way around. It’s not bad pressure, just an expectation I pressure myself to fulfill."

Taylor said she "loves" the feeling, especially now that she is past "a little deer in the headlights" period "because I didn’t know what I was doing."

Which brings us to Friday’s match against Idaho State, which follows the Arizona State-Brigham Young match. Which Wahine team will appear in the postseason? Who would Shoji like to see?

"Certainly the win against Texas was somewhat of a surprise," said Shoji, who has a 70-27 record in the NCAA tournament. "But I really liked the way we bounced back after losing three out of four, just the work ethic that followed the losses and the determination to turn things around. That sticks out more, maybe because it’s more current, but it meant a lot."

The tournament’s 11th-seeded team will soon find out if its rare brush with the death of 19 years of conference title domination will actually help it in the postseason.

There is another element in play. Shoji knows pretty much what he will get out of his seven seniors, a bench full of specialists and middles Jade Vorster and Kalei Adolpho.

Taylor and sophomore hitter Tai Manu-Olevao are the wild cards, now more than ever.

"It’s just the nature of college athletics," Shoji said. "Unless you have all seniors, you will have to rely on somebody young. But our young players have stepped up when we needed."

They have had to step up and "grow my game," as Taylor likes to say. That growth, and their teammates’ ability to help them when they need it most, is crucial now. So are several thousand Hawaii fans — 6,000 ticket packages had been sold by Wednesday afternoon — and the ability to play to their potential with all the postseason pressure.

"I want them to think about the task at hand," Shoji said. "Whenever we think ahead of ourselves, we don’t play well. We’re not good enough to win when we’re not really into the match. We don’t have the type of team that can dominate if we’re not playing at our best."

But this team, especially its younger players, has its confidence back since it went MIA midseason. Shoji calls that the best thing going for these Wahine.

"We’ve gotten our confidence and swagger back," Shoji said. "I like the attitude right now."