Shhhh! Quiet, now.

Everybody knows University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine coach Dave Shoji sits at 1,105 victories and needs just two more to surpass an old friend, ex-UCLA coach Andy Banachowski, and become the career victory leader in women’s volleyball.

But mum is the word because the man himself doesn’t want to hear a peep of it until the deed is done.

Especially now.

Never mind that the milestone is just around the corner, coming as soon as Friday night. Shoji has been around this block before and can be a superstitious sort.

 And Sunday’s upset by then-unranked San Diego in the Chevron Rainbow Wahine Invitational has probably only reinforced his pent-up anxiety on the subject.

It is a trait that, if it didn’t exist earlier in his reign, was certainly embedded in the psyche 606 victories ago, about the time some of his current players were born.

Back then, in 1992, the milestone in front of him was 500 career victories, and quite a celebration was planned for the presumptive clinching win against Brigham Young-Hawaii, an NAIA team at the time.

But the Seasiders, who were en route to winning the NAIA national championship in a 26-2 season, pulled off a four-game stunner. While they danced, the UH festivities were put on hold and the celebratory cake was consigned to an out-of-the-way place in the training room where Shoji wouldn’t see it.

When the Rainbow Wahine finally got around to winning No. 500, a week later, it came 3,010 miles away in Logan, Utah, in a sweep of Utah State. Silly string and a bottle of bubbly had to suffice for the occasion.

As for the cake, well, “it probably got dumped in the trash bin,” Shoji surmised. “I was so upset about losing (to BYUH), I don’t think anybody had the heart to tell me there even was a cake there.”

Moreover, the season became memorable for ending a run of 18 consecutive trips to the postseason when the injury-slowed Rainbow Wahine finished 15-12 and fell to fourth place in the Big West Conference.

The take-away from that, Shoji will tell you, “is that you can’t assume anything in any sport. I don’t think you have to be a genius to figure that out in this day and age.”

In his 39th season, Shoji maintains experience has taught him “you just can’t plan on stuff like that. We know, we tried it and it backfired once.”

So as one-time Western Athletic Conference rival New Mexico State, Santa Clara and 10th-ranked UCLA come to town for the Hawaiian Airlines Volleyball Classic, Thursday through Saturday respectively, the countdown to history begins anew for the ninth-ranked Rainbow Wahine. Quietly, of course.

Just don’t expect Shoji (1,105-185-1) to count along.

The record that Shoji maintained “was the furthest thing from my mind” when the season started, and will apparently remain off his lips — and out of earshot — a little longer. Then, maybe, he can have his cake and eat it, too.

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.