A year ago, the Rainbow Wahine volleyball team's spring exhibition against Stanford had the atmosphere and intrigue of a regular-season battle between two powerhouses. The match, watched by 5,662 at the Stan Sheriff Center, set an unusual precedent that all but guaranteed anything after wouldn't compare. Wahine, Trojans to
experiment in exhibitionBy Grace Wen
gwen@starbulletin.com
Though Hawaii welcomes another defending national champion tomorrow, the hype isn't as huge and Hawaii coach Dave Shoji isn't expecting a large draw for tomorrow's 7 p.m. exhibition against Southern California.
What: Exhibition UH vs. USC
When: 7 p.m. tomorrow
Where: Stan Sheriff Center
TV: None
Radio: None
"We haven't really hyped it so much," Shoji said. "We want people to come out, but it's a midweek game. It'll be very entertaining. It's a chance to see the national championship team. And it's a bunch of players on both sides of the net who have been involved with USA volleyball, so it's a very good possibility that future Olympians will be on the same court."
But it's not quite like last year when there was an actual Olympian in Logan Tom and an opponent like the Cardinal, who have had Hawaii's number over the last decade. The match will be without Olympians, but there will be All-Americans galore in the Wahine's Lily Kahumoku and Lauren Duggins along with Trojan standouts April Ross and Emily Adams.
The Wahine's Kim Willoughby will not play because she is involved with the women's basketball postseason game at Arizona State on Thursday.
Unlike last year, this match will be more of a springboard into both team's offseason practices. Both coaches promise that the match will be rough since they'll experiment with lineups and positions. But volleyball in the spring isn't supposed to be pretty.
"We'll get one match with a really good team. It'll kind of get in everybody's mind what it will be like in August when we come back," USC coach Mick Haley said. "I thought it would be good practice. We're not playing any weekend tournaments this spring.
"We haven't had a chance to do hardly any training. We've had some individual sessions. I'll be doing some different things. And of course we won't have the seniors with us. We'll probably be rough, but we'll compete hard. I don't know how we'll do. The whole idea is to try to do some of the things we want to put in and watch."
The Trojans will be back in Honolulu for the season-opening NACWAA tournament that Hawaii hosts. USC will return most of last year's championship squad, except seniors Lauren Killian and Tracy Lindquist.
The Rainbow Wahine will have a large corps returning, too, but they'll introduce a new setter to the lineup. Freshman Cayley Thurlby redshirted last season and trained alongside Wahine seniors Jennifer Carey and Margaret Vakasausau. Thurlby will set all of the spring tournaments.
"One of the main things for this match is Cayley needs to play in some matches. She didn't get a chance to get into them last year," Shoji said. "It's part of the overall process of trying to get better in all phases of the game. It just so happens that 'SC had to come out during spring break so we had to play a little earlier than we wanted to. It's still good competition for us. It's a little looser (atmosphere). We're still serious about playing, but we're trying to get different looks out there on the court."
The looks will be different especially with Willoughby not in the lineup because of her basketball commitment. Even without Willoughby, Shoji had already been putting players in different spots on the court. In last Saturday's scrimmage against Brigham Young-Hawaii, junior Nohea Tano, normally a right-side hitter, attacked from the left and Kahumoku blocked on the right side. The Wahine won all five games with odd permutations of the lineup.
"We've only had four practices as a team. It'll be a nice challenge to see where we're at," said Kahumoku. "We're not where we usually are without Kim, but that's obvious. We're in a good place. We've trained really hard as far as strength and positioning. It's going to be how well we're able to execute."
Hawaii will suit up seniors Margaret Vakasausau and Jennifer Carey as backups to Thurlby.
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