Sports Watch
WIN or lose in Cleveland, the University of Hawaii women's volleyball team has already clinched the honor of being the sports story of the year locally. Cleveland looks awfully
good to the WahineIf the Rainbow Wahine win the NCAA championship, it would cap a season that already has been remarkable.
We're not talking just about numbers, including a 34-2 record going into the NCAA final four match against top-ranked Florida Thursday. The winner advances to the championship final Saturday against Stanford or Nebraska.
Rather, we're talking about the Wahine achieving a season-long quest just to get to the final four after last year's painful loss to Michigan State. That was their lone defeat last season and the finality of it not only stunned the Wahine, but their fans as well.
Tears flowed unabashedly that night. And, yet, even more tears were shed after the victory over BYU. The Wahine had finally gotten back to the final four after being one win away so many times since 1988.
But, as senior Nalani Yamashita, who played a big role in the victory, put it, there was a big difference. "These are happy tears," she said. "Last year, it was devastation tears."
Yamashita made sure they were happy tears with two aces and an awesome dig that led to another point in a seven-point service run that helped to close out the Cougars.
"We deserved it. We worked hard for it. Everything we did paid off," Yamashita said.
THERE were tears in her eyes when Yamashita said it, not long after she celebrated the Wahine's victory by hugging Robyn Ah Mow, the two of them joyously tumbling to the floor, savoring the moment.
"We wanted to go to the Final Four. That was our goal," Yamashita said. "We were feeding off of that goal."
It was especially sweet for Yamashita and her four senior teammates - Ah Mow, Angelica Ljungquist, Joselyn Robins and Chastity Nobriga.
That they did it in their final home match at the Special Events Arena before a sellout crowd of 10,225, and beating WAC nemesis BYU in the NCAA regional final made it all the more delightful.
It doesn't get any better than that.
Well, maybe winning the NCAA championship. But, then, that's yet another goal.
Regardless of the outcome in Cleveland, it would be difficult to surpass the Wahine's accomplishment of achieving so lofty a goal - to be among the top four teams in a sport played by nearly 300 colleges in Division I alone.
It's one thing to set a goal. Teams do it every year. You know, a winning season, a conference title and making the postseason playoffs. But it's quite a quantum leap to have a goal of final four or bust.
But that's exactly what the Wahine's goal was at the start of the season. Each player, especially the seniors, knew that the season couldn't be called a success until they made it to the final four.
After all, last year's 31-1 season wasn't good enough in their eyes.
Talk about a pressure situation.
CLEVELAND was definitely on their minds all season long. Cleveland this, Cleveland that.
And you know what? They did it. Their prize for winning the NCAA regional? Five days in Cleveland.
It might not seem like much of a prize. But Cleveland represents volleyball heaven for coach Dave Shoji and his Rainbow Wahine.
"It's going to be the most beautiful city I've ever seen," said Shoji, who has never had any reason to visit Cleveland before. He even wore a Cleveland cap at the postgame press conference for the occasion.
"It's just a big relief," Shoji said. "We worked hard for this all year. It's been a long time. I really wanted this one, too."