After the Hawaii volleyball practice on Monday, outside hitter Siki Zarkovic emerged from the locker room carrying a large paper bag.

"Books," Zarkovic said of the bag’s contents. "I’m going to do a lot of studying."

The Rainbow Warriors depart Tuesday morning for Irvine, Calif., in advance of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament’s semifinal match against Pepperdine on Thursday.

The scenarios are extreme. In a dream sequence, the Warriors do well in the MPSF playoffs, advance to the NCAA tournament next week in Stanford, Calif., and compete for a national championship. That would mean returning to Hawaii in time for the start of the school’s final-examination week on May 11.

"We’re going to take all the books, everything," Zarkovic said. "We expect to stay."

This season, the Warriors played in UC Irvine’s Bren Center, splitting a two-match series against the Anteaters. The Warriors also won both regular-season matches against Pepperdine.

"We’re familiar with the environment," Zarkovic said. "We’re going to be fully prepared for Pepperdine. There’s nothing to hold back. We’re going to be ready. Everybody feels good. It’s the exciting time of the season. Everything matters. We’ll try to live up to the expectations."

UH coach Charlie Wade said: "We’re super excited to be into the second week of the playoffs, and we’re looking forward to playing a really good team, and hopefully playing well enough to advance."

In a three-set victory over Long Beach State last weekend, UH opposite Brook Sedore had six kills and hit .125. After the match, Sedore recalled: "Everybody asked me if something was wrong."

He then reviewed video of the match, noting that the 49ers were able to dig some of Sedore’s hardest swings.

"There were six balls I could have easily had kills," Sedore said. "I could have had 12 kills instead of six."

Sedore was pulled in the third set, then returned to spark the Warriors’ late surge. He had a key kill off a D-set and teamed with middle Davis Holt on a block.

"Brook made a couple nice plays for us at the crucial point of the game," Wade said. "That was good."

Sedore said: "The numbers say something, for sure, but the game was so much more different. There were a lot of things I did that didn’t show up on the stat sheet. It showed a very, very average game, but if you watch the film, Long Beach is a very, very scrappy team."

If Irvine and UH win semifinal matches, both probably would qualify for the NCAA tournament. There is a possibility UH still could earn a berth even if it loses to Pepperdine.

"There are so many different situations with what can happen," Sedore said. "We just have to look at playing Pepperdine, and go from there."