As ninth-ranked Hawaii leaves on its third volleyball road trip it is still without one of its best players — Jane Croson remains on suspension, but it is no longer "indefinite" — and with the NCAA’s best current conference winning streak (65).
If the Rainbow Wahine come home with that record intact, after matches this weekend at Long Beach State and UC Irvine, Croson could rejoin them to try to add to it.
"She is back at practice and she has got a few obligations to meet," UH coach Dave Shoji says. "If everything goes well she could be activated next week."
Her presence has already been felt. At Tuesday’s early morning practice Croson played for the "B" side, which won nearly every scrimmage against the starters. The drills were designed to give the reserves an advantage, but Croson’s impact was still compelling.
She has been out, for breaking unspecified team rules, more than three weeks. It didn’t look like she had missed a beat
"If that’s the case next week," Shoji said, "she’ll start."
In her absence, the Wahine (17-2, 10-0 Big West) have moved up to No. 18 in the NCAA power ranking — closer to hosting a NCAA subregional — and have had to search even deeper to find themselves, and stability. While setter Mita Uiato and defenders Ali Longo and Emily Maeda have been remarkably consistent all season, their teammates have taken turns watching each other’s backs.
The revamped middle continues to have dramatic highs and lows. Freshman hitter Tai Manu-Olevao was activated after Croson’s suspension and provided a huge boost against Cal State Northridge and UC Davis. When she struggled in Saturday’s five-set win over Pacific, Kaela Goodman was extremely effective.
"Kaela plays well in practice, she just hasn’t been able to duplicate that in games," Shoji said of the junior. "She hits for a high percentage in practice, but has only done that occasionally in games, not consistently. We’ll see how it goes this weekend."
The most eye-popping difference with Croson out has been transfer Ashley Kastl’s emergence. Forced to play all six rotations, she has helped stabilize the passing and put up three double-doubles, with 11 kills and 10-plus digs in each. Last week, Kastl also found an efficiency that has eluded her, hitting nearly .300 to raise her percentage to more than .200.
Second-team All-American Emily Hartong, who moved from the middle to outside this year, continues to lead the conference — and is 17th nationally — in kills, but she had to rally after poor starts the past two matches.
As a group, Hawaii has started slowly and lost the opening set in its past three, all at home. If that happens at Walter Pyramid Friday or Crawford Hall Saturday, its Big West blitz could end. Shoji also knows his team dominated the 49ers (11-9, 6-3) and Anteaters (9-14, 4-5) a month ago, outhitting them 3-to-1 and keeping both under 20 points. That often leads to letdowns the second time around.
Long Beach’s lineup has gone through more changes than Hawaii’s this year. It lost a setter and all-region middle to injury before the season. Now Delainey Aigner-Swesey, the 49ers’ leading hitter, is out for the rest of the year with a hand injury. Starting middle Alma Serna has been suspended indefinitely.
Still, the Beach keeps winning. The defending conference champion is alone in second and has won four of five since leaving Hawaii, sweeping Irvine last week despite getting down 22-20 in all three sets.
Both road matches begin at 4 p.m. Hawaii time. Friday’s will be telecast live on FSN Prime Ticket (channel 228). Both will be broadcast live on 1420-AM and streamed live at bigwest.tv.
NOTES
» Hawaii remains first nationally in attendance with an average of 6,749 — 2,329 more than No. 2 Nebraska.
» Dave Shoji is now seven short of 1,100 wins in his career. He needs 14 to pass Andy Banachowski and become the winningest coach in Division I women’s volleyball history.
» Of the nine conference matches last week, five went five sets. Cal Poly got its first two BWC wins, going the distance in both, to end a 15-match losing streak that was longest in school history.
