2012 Wahine Volleyball Articles

Fresh-look Wahine subject to new tactics

By Ann Miller



The Hawaii women's volleyball team was picked to win the Big West Conference in 2012 despite the loss of All-America outside hitter Kanani Danielson.

A third of the roster is new and All-American Kanani Danielson will take her remarkable volleyball gifts to Japan's professional league next month.

The University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine open training camp this morning with sleep in their eyes, questions in their heads and a strange-but-true challenge from coach Dave Shoji, whose team was picked by the league's coaches Tuesday to win the Big West title.

"We've got to try and slow the game down, but still be quick," Shoji said.

Olympian Logan Tom, seemingly able to see the game in slow motion, brought him to this conclusion. Shoji spent last week in London watching volleyball at his first Olympics. For all the dynamic young guns Team USA has taken out of its holster, it is the all but unseen talents of the three-time Olympian that Shoji most wants his team to emulate.

"Logan Tom makes uncanny volleyball plays," Shoji says. "She's been doing it since college. She is just so experienced. She makes these off plays and we need to make these off plays. Everything looks so easy for them (the Olympians). They can make tough plays look easy. You really can't teach it, but I want to make the players aware they have got to start making those plays."

He has 20 on the roster and insists "every player needs to think she can start." Kahuku graduate Lizzie Blake decided not to return, but two more defensive specialists came in this summer — Moanalua graduate Katiana Ponce and Sarah Mendoza, who played two years for former Rainbow Tom Pestolesi at Irvine Valley Community College.

Hawaii now has eight defensive specialists, including Penn State transfer Alyssa Longo, returning libero Emily Maeda and Katie Spieler, whose aunt (Lisa Strand Ma‘a) played on two NCAA championship teams at UH. Shoji plans to pick a libero, defensive specialist and server from the mob.

Setters Mita Uiato and Monica Stauber anchor the most stable 2012 position, but Shoji believes even it will look different because both are "vastly improved."

The middle might be least stable. Brittany Hewitt did not return and second-team All-American Emily Hartong is moving outside so she can see more sets. Kristiana Tuaniga, Jade Vorster, Kalei Adolpho and Stephanie Hagins, a 6-foot-4 transfer from Washington State, have combined for very few starts.

"It is the most untested and unproven position, but I have confidence we'll be good in the middle," Shoji says. "It could take a while. Whoever is out there is not going to be great right off the bat, but the potential is there, so I'm not really concerned. It might turn out to be a concern, but now I'm not worried about it."

The other six on the roster are hitters and at least two will have to pass. All three positions are up for grabs, with freshman Tai Manu-Olevao and Arizona State transfer Ashley Kastl — eighth in kills in the Pac-12 last season — thrown into the mix. Sophomore Jane Croson — and her scary serve — has quickly become Hawaii's most familiar hitter.

"It's going to have a different look," Shoji admits. "They will have to find their own identity. Each player needs to find their own niche and how they can contribute. Kastl took a majority of the swings for Arizona State. She probably won't get as many attempts, but her role could be very, very important to us."

The Wahine went 31-2 last year and were ranked fifth in the final 2011 AVCA poll. They open this season Aug. 24 against Albany. Stanford, Cal and defending NCAA champion UCLA will be here the first three weeks. Then Hawaii returns to the Big West Conference after a 16-year absence — and 13 Western Athletic Conference championships.

Wahine sweating to the oldies as Shoji goes back to basics

By Ann Miller


CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
UH associate coach Scott Wong worked on blocking with Tai Manu-Olevao.


Day 1 of Rainbow Wahine volleyball turned into Volleyball 101.

While the sun was still on its way up, 20 players were on their way out. They gathered at Stan Sheriff Center before 6:30 a.m. Wednesday for the first day of practice.

What they found was an introduction to Hawaii volleyball made necessary by seven new faces and coach Dave Shoji's Olympic-inspired desire to have his team focus on "making the tough plays look easy."

The opening hours of the 2012 season, which officially begins Aug. 24 against Albany, were a sweaty succession of drills run in silence, with agonizingly small corrections.

"No matter how old you are," said setter Mita Uiato, "you have to go back to technique."

Shoji started from the beginning, as in the first step. He went over the relative detriments of the split-step, a move tennis players practice religiously to return serve but Shoji believes takes too long. "Or," he told his players, "tennis players are just better at it than volleyball players."

He wants them in position, both feet on the ground, when the ball is hit. He wants their weight precisely balanced so they can play every ricochet. He warned them never to backpedal, always to turn their body.

Shoji altered the angle of blockers' bodies and fingers by fractions of an inch. He told his players to stay on their feet and "pursue" balls unless they absolutely had to dive on the floor.

Then the 65-year-old coach, in the opening hours of his 38th season, demonstrated the "collapse dig" — just what it sounds like — more than once.

Transfer Sarah Mendoza compared the demonstration favorably to what she saw a year ago from Irvine Valley coach Tom Pestolesi, who played for Shoji at UH in the 1980s. He helped Mendoza get into the program that was her first choice from the time she played ‘Iolani's Ann Kang Tournament in high school.

After talking up the Hawaii coaching staff and volleyball community, Pestolesi gave Mendoza, a 5-foot-5 defensive specialist, one final word of advice.

"He told me," said Mendoza, whose mother lived here, "to work my butt off."

That is what the first few weeks of double-day practices are all about. Combined with Shoji's energized emphasis on making irregular plays on a regular basis, there is no time to rest, mind or weary body.

"He wants us to make it more simple," Mendoza explains. "Minimalize all of our moves. Just get there, be set, not have a whole bunch of movement. And be smart about playing, definitely."

Hawaii lost three starters (Chanteal Satele, Brittany Hewitt and Kanani Danielson) from last season. This team will look drastically different. It might not look great through a preseason that includes Stanford the first week, Cal the second and defending NCAA champion UCLA the third.

All were in the top 16 in last year's final ranking, along with Hawaii, which finished fifth. That will be a stretch early on.

"I don't think we'll be very good early," Shoji said, "but we need to keep improving to be a factor later in the year. Last year we were really good early. There were no question marks. We were solid from the start. We were good already, we just had to maintain it. This year we could be very average early, but we have a lot of upside. We need to improve."

A fraction of an inch a day, a fraction of an inch a play.

"(Volunteer assistant) Kaleo (Baxter) likes to tell us to get 1 percent better every day," says Uiato, "so that's pretty much what we're working on — getting better every day."


Notes


» Freshman Katie Speiler, who suffered a fractured toe nearly three weeks ago, did not participate in the first practice.

» Tickets are available online for this year's NCAA championship. The final four will be Dec. 13 and 15 at KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky. Two-day all-sessions passes begin at $50, plus a surcharge of more than $10, at ticketmaster.com.

» Dave Shoji's sons, Kawika and Erik, will both play professional volleyball this fall in Germany. Kawika, an ‘Iolani graduate, returns to his championship team in Berlin. Erik, a Punahou graduate, will play for a team in Leipzig, 2 hours south. Both were All-Americans at Stanford and started on the Cardinal's 2010 NCAA championship team.

Shoji doesn't expect the Wahine to be very good early (mentioned in the article above.) It'll probably take the team a little while to gel and get comfortable with each other (and with their new positions) so Stanford should come into the SSC as the favorties to win the match on August 26th. It could be a bit sloppy on the Wahine side of the net but Longo should settle the passing and the Wahine (with Croson and Hartong on the outside) have enough to compete with the Cardinal.

It would be nice if the Wahine could beat the three Pac-12 teams during the preseason but even if they lost them all it should not effect their RPI ranking as I was told how its calculated. It would affect the AVCA poll, but it not used to seed the top sixteen teams in post season. My hope is that the Wahine host the first/second rounds at seasons end.

The high RPI conferences are the Big Ten, Pac Twelve and Big Twelve. Of those UH has no 2012 opponent form the Big ten. The final RPI rankings of 2011 lists two of the top 3 in the Big Twelve, Five of the top 13 from the Big Ten, two of the top 20 from the PAC Twelve. I my opinion the addition of Utah and Colorado really hurt them.
An example of how being a member in the Big Ten helps a teams RPI is Minnesota. They had a 2011 season record of 20-12, RPI of #12. Hawaii was 31-2, RPI of #10. So a mid major like Hawaii needs to schedule opponents from those conferences if they hope to be seeded in the post season.

I agree that the PAC-10 adding Utah/Colorado hurt them ... not just b/c they are low rated in RPI, but also because more conference matches limited the number of out-of-conference matches that PAC-10 teams could schedule. Scheduling a cross-section of teams from other conferences/regions can help boost an RPI rating.


Besides the big 3 conferences that you mentioned -- Big10, Pac10 and Big12 -- other schools and conferences can be a source of good RPI opponents as well. For some reason the RPI also looks favorably upon conferences like the MVC (where Wichita St is, and they've come to Hawaii a few times) and also the Big East (where Cincy and Notre Dame are, and who have also been past Hawaii opponents).

For 2012, the only non-conference teams on Hawaii's schedule that's not situated on the West coast are: Albany, Baylor and Idaho. Their RPIs respectively last year were Albany-84, Baylor-48, and Idaho-104. So Baylor will help. Albany's RPI is at least under 100, and they usually win their conference with a decent win-loss record. Idaho ... i don't know?

We'll see how this all shakes out.

I'm absolutely loving the added dimension and perspective that Robyn is bringing to the coaching staff and the Wahine team.