Mahalo for supporting Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Enjoy this free story!
And you thought the Hawaii football schedule was brutal.
The Rainbow Wahine volleyball slate appears to trump that of the Rainbow Warriors’. While football has Ohio State, Wisconsin and Boise State on the road during the first five weeks of the season, volleyball is on the road for all but one match in November.
That’s six consecutive Big West away matches between Nov. 6 and Nov. 21 to close the regular season. That’s including consecutive nights at Long Beach State and CSUN, and another four within seven days across three regions in California: northern, southern and central.
That’s a senior night on Nov. 1 with more than a third of the conference contests remaining.
It is what it is and, according to Rainbow Wahine coach Dave Shoji, the November schedule was the lesser of two evils. The other option for the mid-month matches was to squeeze them in on the same day as men’s basketball tournament doubleheaders.
"It was the better alternative," said Shoji, beginning his 41st year in Manoa. "Basically that weekend was just a scheduling nightmare with men’s basketball and football that Saturday. There was an option for us to maybe play at 1 p.m. Sunday, but that was unacceptable to me. So we swapped out the weekend that we play (UC) Irvine and (UC) Davis. It made more sense."
Originally, Hawaii was to host UCI on Nov. 13 and UC Davis on Nov. 15. Now, the Wahine will be at UC Davis on Nov. 15 and UCI on Nov. 17, to start of the four-matches-in-seven-days road trip.
"Playing every other day is not the end of the world," Shoji said. "It was a compromise and allowed us to combine two road trips."
The Big West again kept Hawaii as the "lone wolf" where the Rainbow Wahine are the only opponent for a team that week. The travel pairings also remained the same for Hawaii’s opponents: Long Beach State-CSUN, UC Davis-UC Irvine, UC Riverside-CSU Fullerton and UC Santa Barbara-Cal Poly.
Shoji feels the nonconference schedule also will be challenging. Headlining the three tournaments are Florida, Oregon State and UCLA, all of which advanced at least to the Sweet 16 of last season’s NCAA tournament. Also coming to the Stan Sheriff Center are defending Patriot League champion American (in the Hawaiian Airlines Classic) and Cal State Bakersfield, last year’s Western Athletic Conference champion for two nonconference contests prior to Big West play.
Hawaii returns 12 players from the team that finished 22-7 overall and second in the Big West at 13-5.
RAINBOW WAHINE VOLLEYBALL SCHEDULE
Home matches at Stan Sheriff Center
All matches at 7 p.m. unless noted otherwise
Chevron Rainbow Wahine Invitational
Aug. 28: Oregon State vs. Wichita State, 4:30 p.m.; Idaho at Hawaii
Aug. 29: Idaho vs. Oregon State, 4:30 p.m.; Wichita State at Hawaii
Aug. 30: Idaho vs. Wichita State, 2:30 p.m.; Oregon State at Hawaii, 5 p.m.
Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Classic
Sept. 4: American vs. UCLA, 4:30 p.m.; Iowa at Hawaii
Sept. 5: Iowa vs. UCLA, 4:30 p.m.; American at Hawaii
Sept. 6: Iowa vs. American, 2:30 p.m.; UCLA at Hawaii, 5 p.m.
Outrigger Resorts Challenge
Sept. 10: Florida vs. Eastern Washington, 4:30 p.m.; San Diego State at Hawaii
Sept. 11: Eastern Washington vs. San Diego State, 4:30 p.m.; Florida at Hawaii
Sept. 12: San Diego State vs. Florida, 2:30 p.m.; Eastern Washington at Hawaii
Nonconference
Sept. 18: CSU Bakerfield at Hawaii, 7 p.m.
Sept. 20: CSU Bakersfield at Hawaii, 5 p.m.
Big West
Sept. 25: UC Santa Barbara
Sept. 26: Cal Poly
Oct. 2: at CSU Fullerton
Oct. 3: at UC Riverside
Oct. 9: CSUN
Oct. 11: Long Beach State, 5 p.m.
Oct. 16: UC Davis
Oct. 17: UC Irvine
Oct. 30: UC Riverside
Nov. 1: CSU Fullerton, 5 p.m.
Nov. 6: at Long Beach State.
Nov. 7: at CSUN
Nov. 15: at UC Davis
Nov. 17: at UC Irvine
Nov. 19: at Cal Poly
Nov. 21: at UC Santa Barbara
NCAA tournament
Dec. 3-5: 1st-2nd rounds, TBA
Dec. 11-12: NCAA regionals, San Diego; Des Moines, Iowa; Austin, Texas; Lexington, Ky.
Dec. 17 & 19: Final four, Omaha, Neb.
73