After three-plus weeks of practice and an intrasquad scrimmage, Hawaii’s exhibition game against Hawaii Hilo today offers a new-look Rainbow Wahine rotation — which is for the moment limited — its first opportunity to unite against an opponent.
“They love each other, they have each other’s back, but right now they’re sick of each other and they gotta go after somebody else and that will help our chemistry,” UH coach Laura Beeman said.
A day after landing in third and fifth in the Big West women’s basketball preseason polls, the Rainbow Wahine face the Division II Vulcans today in their lone exhibition game prior to the Nov. 11 season opener at USC. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the Stan Sheriff Center.
UH lost six of its top eight scorers off last year’s 21-11 Big West title team and Beeman said being voted third in the Big West media poll and fifth in the coaches poll is “a fair judgment based on everything we lost last year, expected and unexpected.”
“These young ladies can either take that as a slap in the face and we’ve got some work to do and some things to prove or they can say ‘Poor us, they chose us fifth.’ I think this team will take the former.”
Long Beach State topped both polls, receiving five of nine first-place votes from the coaches and nine of 20 from the media. UH received three first-place votes in the media poll and one in the coaches poll.
Injuries will limit UH to seven players for today’s exhibition. Forwards Keleah-Aiko Koloi and Makenna Woodfolk and guard Courtney Middap are nursing injuries and Beeman doesn’t expect the freshmen to be available tonight.
“With seven bodies we have to be careful of conditioning, we have to be careful of injuries obviously, we have to be careful of foul trouble,” Beeman said. “So (tonight) could be very interesting and very challenging for us.”
Junior guard Sarah Toeaina scored a game-high 22 points in Friday’s 20-minute Green and White scrimmage. Sophomore forward Lahni Salanoa went 4-for-6 from 3-point range and finished with 16 points and senior guard Briana Harris added 14 points.
Leah Salanoa led UH with three assists and grabbed six rebounds in the scrimmage and is sharing point guard duties with fellow sophomore Olivia Crawford.
“We were talking about how we’re ready to put it together and put up those numbers we did on Friday as one,” Leah Salanoa said.
With Koloi and Woodfolk sidelined and transfer center Adrienne Darden limited to practice until December, freshman Taylor Donohue represents the team’s lone true post player in tonight’s rotation. Lahni Salanoa will be the first option to spell Donohue in the post.
“We’re either going to be extremely small or she’s going to be on the floor playing a lot of minutes,” Beeman said of Donohue, a 6-foot-3 center from Trabuco Canyon, Calif.
“She’s getting thrown into a full-blown forest fire. Is it going to affect us at times? Sure. But as long as we can keep her healthy and confident it’s only going to help us down the stretch.”
UH Hilo went 10-15 last season and returns six of its top seven scorers. Guard Kim Schmalz led the Division II Vulcans with 12 points per game as a freshman. Lauren Hong also returns after hitting a team-high 36 3-pointers while averaging 10 points per game.
Big West coaches poll
1. Long Beach State (5), 73
2. UC Davis, 61
3. UC Riverside (1), 56
4. UC Santa Barbara (1), 52
5. Hawaii (1), 48
6. CSUN (1), 46
7. Cal Poly, 42
8. UC Irvine, 17
9, Cal State Fullerton, 10
Big West media poll
1. Long Beach State (9), 157
2. UC Riverside (7), 154
3. Hawaii (3), 127
4. UC Davis (1), 113
5. CSUN, 103
6 Cal Poly, 97
7. UC Santa Barbara, 89
8. UC Irvine, 34
9, Cal State Fullerton, 26
Preseason All-Big West team (media and coaches)
Raven Benton, Long Beach State
Morgan Bertsch, UC Davis
Channon Fluker, CSUN
Hannah Gilbert, Cal Poly
Dynn Leaupepe, Cal Poly
Rejane Verin, UC Riverside
