January is generally a time of expectation and anticipation for Maureen Cole.

But this is a little different.

Due to give birth to her second child, the University of Hawaii water polo coach stayed back while the Rainbow Wahine departed Wednesday morning on a season-opening road trip. In her place, associate coach Ryan Castle will lead the team into this weekend’s UC Santa Barbara Winter Invitational.

“Coach Ryan has done a great job, so the team is definitely in good hands,” Cole said. “It’ll just be hard for me obsessing over Twitter and waiting to get the video when they get back.”

Cole might have welcomed a new addition to her family by the time the Wahine, ranked seventh in the Collegiate Water Polo Association poll, return to Manoa after playing six matches over three days at UCSB’s Recreation Center.

Coming off a Big West title and an appearance in the NCAA championship last spring, UH makes its season debut against No. 4 California today at 8 a.m. Hawaii time and faces No. 12 Michigan at 2:30 p.m. Saturday’s schedule features matchups with No. 2 UCLA and No. 20 Wagner. The Wahine close the tournament Sunday against No. 8 San Jose State and CS Bakersfield.

In Cole’s first four seasons as head coach, the Wahine started the season in late January or early February. But she scheduled the UCSB tournament to give a young roster an earlier jump on the season.

“It’s a lot of games and we have a pretty small roster, so everyone will get thrown into the fire real quick and we’ll learn where we need to improve early in the season,” said Cole, who hopes to be back on the pool deck for UH’s home matches, starting March 16 against USC, and travel to Big West road matches and the conference tournament in April.

“We just wanted to try to get more nonconference games in earlier just to learn and explore so by March, when the conference season starts, we’ve played a little more than we have in the past and gained a bit more experience for the young ones.”

Between the graduation of three seniors and underclassmen training with their national programs, the Wahine will be without their top seven goal scorers off last year’s team that finished 19-10 and won the Big West tournament title.

Chloe Barr, last year’s Big West Player of the Year and a second-team All-American with 52 goals, is redshirting this season, as are honorable mention All-Americans Paula Chillida Esforzado (43 goals), who is training with Spain’s national team, and Claire Nixon (35 goals). Gabi Mantellato Dias (27 goals) of Brazil also is expected to return to UH after the Olympics.

“I’m always going to want to recruit the best, and as a coach you want your players to be in a position to make an Olympic team,” Cole said. “So to have a couple being able to do that is great for our program and for those girls.”

Cole continued to recruit internationally in preparation for this season and rates the class of freshmen among the best she’s signed at UH.

Freshman Irene Gonzalez scored 23 goals to help Spain to a silver medal at the FINA World Junior Water Polo Championships last summer, while Femke Aan scored six goals over five matches for the Netherlands. Gonzalez scored three goals and Aan two in an 11-10 loss in Saturday’s Alumnae match at Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex.

Julia Barton played for Australia’s gold medal team at the World University Games, while UH junior Taylor Molde helped Canada to the silver.

“They’re talented international girls, so a pretty well-balanced freshman group, which is awesome in a year like this to have that many and that much experience,” Cole said.

Cole also noted junior- college transfer Nikki-Marie Bell as a newcomer who is “going to surprise people.”

Molde returns as a starting defender and the Wahine have experience in goal with sophomore Ymane Hage and junior Sarah Logan back. Hage started most of the Big West schedule last year before suffering an injury in the conference tournament. Logan, who led UH with 107 saves last season, made 10 in an overtime win over UC Irvine in the title match.