Wahine drop in poll despite winning 2 more

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JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
Tai Manu-Olevao

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It is said that one can’t lose for winning. Not so in the case of the Hawaii volleyball team.

The Rainbow Wahine (20-1, 10-0 Big West) won both matches last week but still lost ground in the Ratings Percentage Index on Monday. Hawaii dropped six spots to No. 32 in the computer-generated formula that rates teams’ records and strength of schedules, and is used by the NCAA selection committee to seed the top 16 teams and award hosting duties for the first and second rounds.

Beating UC Riverside and Cal State Fullerton — last week rated 239th and 299th — caused Hawaii to slip after three weeks of moving up from its initial rank of 36. Conversely, losing to the higher-rated Wahine allowed both the Highlanders (now 231st) and Titans (295th) to move up.

“It’s nothing we can control,” Hawaii coach Dave Shoji. “We knew the Riverside and Fullerton games would hurt us. We just need to keep winning.”

The Wahine will put their 15-match win streak on the line this Friday at Long Beach State, the first of six straight road matches that will close out the Big West Conference season. This trip includes CSUN on Saturday, with Hawaii back home for a few days before leaving to play four road matches in seven days, starting with UC Davis on Nov. 15.

The two victories also didn’t help Hawaii in Monday’s AVCA Coaches Top 25. The Wahine stayed at No. 6 while two upsets jumbled the rankings of the five teams ahead of them.

Defending national champion Penn State (21-2) moved up three spots to No. 1, receiving 27 first-place votes. Previous No. 1 USC (23-1), swept at Washington last week, also received 27 votes but dropped to No. 2.

The Huskies (20-2, 8 votes) jumped two spots to No. 3, followed by Minnesota (19-3, 2 votes) staying at No. 4. Texas (19-2), swept by unranked TCU, fell three places to No. 5.

Rounding out the top 10 were Stanford (15-5), Nebraska (18-4), UCLA (18-4) and Kansas (21-1). The Bruins are the only team to defeat the Wahine this season.

Long Beach State (19-5, 9-2) continued to receive votes and have 57 points, putting them outside the Top 25 at 29th.