WAC foes come Fourth-ranked Stanford is looming, but it wouldn't be prudent for top-ranked Hawaii to forget its Western Athletic Conference opponents this week.
before Stanford
UH can't look past Nevada
and Boise State as it prepares
for the No. 4 CardinalBy Grace Wen
gwen@starbulletin.comAlthough the Rainbow Wahine (21-0, 9-0 WAC) haven't shown any signs of easing up on their assault of conference teams, a loss to either Nevada (18-5, 7-3) tomorrow or Boise State (1-20, 0-9) on Saturday would be devastating for Hawaii.
Yes, Sunday's 6 p.m. match against Stanford will be the Rainbow Wahine's most important match to date. It will help Hawaii gauge how it compares with the top teams in the nation and provide insight on what the Wahine might need to fix before the postseason.
But the Wolf Pack come first, and they're still smarting from last Friday's loss at home. Hawaii coach Dave Shoji said last week's match against Nevada was won handily because his players were totally focused on the Wolf Pack.
"We better concentrate on Nevada," Shoji said. "We better pay attention.
"We did a nice job on (middle Michelle) More. We're going to have to do the same kind of job this week. A couple of their players gave us some problems, so we have to make sure they don't do it again."
Nevada coach Devin Scruggs hopes for just the opposite.
"I hope that Hawaii is concentrating on Stanford and I hope they forget about us, but I don't think they're going to do that," Scruggs said. "Kim (Willoughby) and Lily (Kahumoku) are the two most dominating outside hitters on the same team in the country. ... Those two are phenomenal and maybe one of them will be sick."
Scruggs isn't thrilled about this portion of Nevada's conference schedule. During the last two weeks, the Wolf Pack have faced most of the tougher teams in the WAC. Their schedule won't get any easier after this week with a match at Fresno State next week.
"I have to admit I don't like the scheduling at all," Scruggs said. "The fact that we get to play Hawaii in almost back-to-back matches and then with the loss to San Jose in the middle, it does not look good in ending our season with some losses.
"I think we're still a pretty good team. I'm hoping we can still pull out some wins toward the end of the year."
If Nevada does pull out some wins, it could make its third trip to the NCAA tournament. In five years at the helm, Scruggs has guided the Wolf Pack to NCAA tournament appearances in 1998 and 2001.
Scruggs has been looking for her 100th coaching victory since last week. The win has eluded her as Nevada experienced back-to-back losses for the first time this season. The Wolf Pack dropped a four-game match to San Jose State on Sunday after losing to Hawaii on Friday.
The quick turnaround means there's little time to devise a new game plan to stop the Wahine. Scruggs said the basic premise of any plan would be the same.
"Stop Lily and Kim. I don't know if that is possible," Scruggs said. "Slow them down certainly. Discussing strategy with a team like Hawaii is pretty obvious. They have two phenomenal outside hitters.
"We hope to come in and get better at some of the things we want to work on. Hawaii will be kind of a test for us to see if we can make some changes that we're making. To be quite honest, we're looking very strongly at our following match, which is Fresno State."
Notes: An MRI on Tuesday night showed that middle blocker Karin Lundqvist has a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Lundqvist suffered the injury last Friday against Nevada.
"Surgery is not an option now," Hawaii trainer Renae Shigemura said. "We're going to try to rehab her and get her fitted for a knee brace. A lot of athletes play on ACL-deficient knees. ... We're looking at the possibility of her returning this season."
Lundqvist was not scheduled to play this week. Junior Maja Gustin will start in her place. ... Both of this week's WAC matches will start at 7 p.m. The Wahine alumnae match precedes Saturday's match against Boise State at 5 p.m. ... Hawaii continues to lead the nation in three statistical categories (hitting percentage, kills per game and assists per game). Willoughby is third in the country in kills per game (6.43) while Kahumoku ranks 13th (5.28). ... Stanford leads the nation in blocking with 3.73 blocks per game.
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