Wahine volleyball filling schedule with RPI in mind

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DARRYL OUMI / 2017

Robyn Ah Mow-Santos led the University of Hawaii women’s volleyball team to a 20-8 record in her first season as head coach.

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There has always been a challenge for Hawaii to fill the nonconference schedules for its sports teams. With the added emphasis on the Ratings Percentage Index for postseason selection, it is becoming increasingly difficult, particularly in women’s volleyball.

Second-year Rainbow Wahine coach Robyn Ah Mow-Santos has nearly completed the 2019 schedule and already has begun on 2020. It’s this season, the one that starts on Aug. 24 with the 31st Hawaiian Airlines Classic, that has been difficult to fill.

“We try to bring teams here that will help us (in the RPI) and teams want to play others that will help them as well,” said the three-time Olympian and All-American setter for the Wahine. “And we try to get teams that fans will want to come watch. The schedule is all right, we have UCLA, Oregon, Gonzaga.

“We tried to do the best we could.”

It didn’t help that two-thirds of what would have been the second of three tournaments pulled out late. Ah Mow-Santos didn’t want to name names but, with two teams gone, it left Coastal Carolina as the lone competitor in the Aug. 30-Sept. 2 slot.

Hawaii will play the Chanticleers on Aug. 30 and 31, matches that are sandwiched in between the Aug. 24-26 Hawaiian Airlines Classic and the Sept. 6-9 Outrigger Resorts Challenge. The Wahine’s final matches before Big West play are two against Oregon, Sept. 13-14, a Thursday-Friday series.

For the first time since 2002, Hawaii will play a nonconference road match late in the season. The Wahine will be at Pepperdine — led by their former associate head coach Scott Wong — on Nov. 6, the third match on a road trip that includes Cal State Northridge on Nov. 2 and Long Beach State on Nov. 3.

Hawaii, 20-8 overall and 14-2 in the Big West last year, concludes conference play at home with UC Irvine on Nov. 15 and UC Davis on Nov. 16. The first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament will be held between Nov. 29 and Dec. 1.