Hawaii’s year of living erratically moves on today when the eighth-ranked Rainbow Wahine open their second Big West Conference volleyball road trip at Cal Poly. UH coach Dave Shoji insists his team will move on as well after Jane Croson was suspended indefinitely this week.

Croson, a primary force in Hawaii’s passing, hitting, defense and serving, was left home for breaking team rules. Shoji would not say what those were, but did say she "is a big part of our team and we hope she can meet the standards of a UH student-athlete in order to be reinstated soon."

Her absence KOs the Wahine’s 1-2 punch. Emily Hartong and Croson are first and fifth in conference kills, each averaging about four a set. Freshman middle Jade Vorster is next with half that.

Tai Manu-Olevao, who was playing for Punahou this time last year, took Croson’s place on the plane and could take her place on the floor tonight in San Luis Obispo, Calif., burning her redshirt year.

Shoji plans to start Hartong and transfer Ashley Kastl on the left, with Kaela Goodman opposite the setter. All three are juniors. He expects Manu-Olevao to play at some point because "we’ve got to find where we need people again."

The first test will be Kastl’s passing.

"We haven’t given Ashley Kastl any opportunities to pass," Shoji says, "so this will definitely give her a chance to show what she can do. I think she’s a good passer, but we have been taking her out in the back row. From now on she will have to stay in and pass."

The Mustangs (1-14, 0-3 BWC) have lost their past 11. They have ‘Iolani graduate Chelsea Hardin starting outside, a new coach and a huge puka of their own with 2011 Big West Player of the Year Jennifer Keddy out for the season with a shoulder injury.

In the NCAA’s first power ranking of the year, released Monday, Cal Poly was 235th out of 330 Division I teams. Hawaii (12-2, 5-0) is 21st, but admittedly still "evolving" even before it lost Croson.

The Wahine went 3-0 on their first trip, but needed five sets to silence Cal State Northridge and Fullerton. They played dramatically better back home last week, sweeping UC Irvine and Long Beach State.

"We came back and didn’t like the way we performed on the last road trip," said junior libero Ali Longo. "And we responded by coming out strong against Irvine and showed everyone we are not the team that played in Northridge, Riverside and Fullerton.

"We are still trying to evolve, trying to get different strengths and work out the kinks so at the end of the year we have options. We’ve started to eliminate the things that were wrong."

The Big West has more speed bumps than the Western Athletic Conference, Hawaii’s home for the last 16 years. Rallies are longer and opponents more evenly matched. UH is the only unbeaten team and has three of only seven conference sweeps this season.

Two came last week and left Long Beach coach Brian Gimmillaro talking to his team for more than an hour after its loss.

"We were not in the Hawaii match," Gimmillaro said flatly. "I’m not sure how well Hawaii played, but it played well enough to win. … I wish we’d played better so the fans could have enjoyed it more. I’m sure they enjoyed the win, but you enjoy it more the tougher it is."

Shoji is not sure how well his team played, either, and makes no promises for this trip. Instead, the coach echoes Longo’s words — "We are still an evolving team," Shoji says, "but I think we will be ready this time."

Hawaii has taken Ginger Long on both trips, primarily because she gives the team one more option on the outside. But the 5-foot-11 redshirt freshman has only one swing this season and has focused on back row. What Shoji saw on the last trip, and last week at home, opened his eyes.

"We needed to take her to be part of our hitting in case something happened," he said. "She had to be on the trip for depth purposes. We also put her in a position to come in for the other middle to serve and I think she did a really nice job of that in those three matches on the first trip.

"Courtney (Lelepali) has done a good job there, but she can’t play front row. That almost eliminates her from making the road trip. Ginger, by process of elimination, has got to be that person, but she has earned another look."

This trip ends Saturday at UC Santa Barbara (8-10, 1-2), whose only conference win is over Cal Poly. The Gauchos’ setter is Georgia Tech transfer Ali Santi, who was Manu-Olevao’s Punahou teammate.

Hawaii takes a national-best 60-match regular-season conference winning streak into the trip.