Playing the cards that are dealt don’t mean standing pat on the hand.

It means not being afraid to shuffle the order of the cards being held, seeing the potential for a straight or a flush or a full house.

Hawaii (6-5) definitely has a full house when it comes to outside hitters this volleyball season, with five vying for three starting spots. Juniors McKenna Granato and Casey Castillo have been the constants at the pins, starting all 11 matches, and senior setter-turned-OH Kendra Koelsch all but two.

Sophomores McKenna Ross and Kirsten Sibley have been on the lineup card handed in by coach Robyn Ah Mow-Santos before the first whistle at the Stan Sheriff Center. Deal in two wild cards — seniors Emily Maglio, a true middle, and outside hitter Kalei Greeley, working on breaking into the front row after offseason shoulder surgery — and the Rainbow Wahine know they have options, many options, as the two-time defending Big West champions open conference play tonight against visiting UC Irvine (12-1).

Having a more balanced attack was the goal since even last spring. It also was the necessity of looking for points to compensate for the graduation of opposite Nikki Taylor, the two-time conference player of the year who accounted for 490 of Hawaii’s 1,829 points (kills plus aces plus blocks) last season.

“We knew coming in that the team is not the same as the last couple of years, where there’s been one go-to player,” first-year UH assistant Angelica Ljungqvist said. “We knew that we needed to work with what we had.

“We’ve worked a lot on finding the best possible solutions to make use of what we have. That’s a learning process for everyone. We want to be a team where we use all of our players and everyone contributes.”

Does that make it harder to scout Hawaii?

“Hopefully,” said Ljungqvist, the Wahine’s first four-time first-team All-American and 1996 AVCA national player of the year, said. “That’s what we want to do.”

The two weeks of preseason workouts concentrated heavily on skill drills, the intent to create all-around players who could be versatile and flexible at positions if needed. Five weeks removed from the end of double-days, the Wahine said the monotony of hours of skill work has paid off.

“You’ve got to be able to do everything to get on the court,” said Castillo, who has played left- and right-side hitter as well as middle during her career at Manoa. “It continues to cultivate the team aspect.

“No one person is greater than the sum of us all.”

The coaching staff’s somewhat out-of-the-box thinking has particularly benefited Maglio, an All-American on the beach and honorable mention All-American indoors. She continues to work on becoming a six-rotation player (not subbed out in the back row) as well as taking swings on high balls set to the outside.

“It’s a really nice change for me,” Maglio said. “I felt I was sort of restricted to being solely in the middle. It’s nice to run slides (step-outs), different plays from behind the setters and high balls.

“It’s nice to have the balance, be more spread out (on offense). It’s better for us so that teams don’t stack the block (as often happened on Taylor). When we establish the middle (attack) it opens up for McKenna (Granato) and Casey and whoever else is out there.”

Granato has played in all but two of the 42 sets, those coming in last Saturday’s sweep of Northern Arizona. Ross replaced her in Sets 2 and 3, the dual purpose to give Granato a rest and Ross playing time.

“This year it’s really important for all of us to score points,” said Granato, leading UH in kills (4.10 kps). “We don’t have a huge hitter that can put the ball away like Nikki.

“We’re not truly amazing at one thing, so we need to work on everything so we can be good at everything.”