Long Beach State grows into a threat to Hawaii

At the time Long Beach State was a little-noted interlude in the University of Hawaii volleyball schedule between more challenging engagements with UCLA and Texas Lutheran.

So low profile was the first meeting between UH and LBSU that the Rainbow Wahine’s coach then, as now, Dave Shoji doesn’t even recall where the Oct. 20, 1977 match was played.

“I can’t imagine them coming out here in those days,” Shoji said Wednesday.

But leaky, creaky Klum Gym it was. And while the Rainbow Wahine swept the 49ers on three consecutive nights it would be the antithesis of the taut, super-charged rivalry that was to emerge.

In this, its 40th year, competitive, tight matches, usually with something of import on the line, have become the expectation, if not the rule.

So it is altogether fitting that Friday night’s renewal at the Stan Sheriff Center is between two teams tied atop the Big West standings at 9-1 in conference play.

Appropriate, too, that they have finished one-two in the conference standings three of the four years since UH rejoined the Big West in 2012.

Theirs is a rivalry built on seven postseason clashes of dashing each other’s NCAA hopes. In a six-year span (1989-1995) they met five times in the NCAAs.

Or, as 49ers coach Brian Gimmillaro told the Long Beach Press-Telegram before last month’s showdown with only the slightest of exaggeration, “The best volleyball matches in the history of the sport have been us and Hawaii — we bring out the best in each other.”

They’ve also brought out the crowds over the years at Klum Gym, the Sheriff Center and Long Beach’s Walter Pyramid where 3,203, the largest 49er crowd in 15 years, saw UH fall in five sets last month.

In this continuing drama, which UH leads 30-18-1, you can thank the two coaches. Between them they have invested nearly 75 years at the two schools and guided their teams to three national championships each.

Their on-going battles extend beyond sideline strategy to across-the-map recruiting. Which is part of why the Big West found a UH return to the conference so attractive in 2012.

It is a series that started to heat up when Gimmillaro came on board in 1985 replacing Dixie Grimmett. “That’s when they got really good,” Shoji said. Suddenly there was somebody who started to match UH All-American for All-American.

They meet Friday knowing that only the conference winner is guaranteed a berth in the NCAA tournament, unlike many past years when such was the power of the Big West that both were postseason perennials. As if this series needed any more competitive juice to fuel it.

Unlike 15-8 Long Beach State, 15th-ranked UH (16-5) would have some at-large possibilities but certainly no set-in-stone assurances if it fails to win the regular season.

“We’d rather not leave it up to anybody else,” Shoji said.

And, if the Wahine can do that by stepping over (or on) the 49ers to get to the postseason, well, so much the better.

Because nobody forgets UH-LBSU matches anymore.

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