#294 - go bows!

i don't think i've posted about uh wahine volleyball yet this year, which is surprising to me because they are pretty fricken' awesome this year. i guess i've been kinda down the past few years because the team has been kinda of mediocre (of course, "mediocre" for UH vball is still stellar for pretty much all of the rest of the country). i really started watching vball in the 90's... i don't think i've ever watched a game in klum gym (in person), but i've been to the stan sherrif center from the beginning (when it was called the special events arena). the first team i really remember following was the 1995 team (i think they lost in the NCAA regional finals to florida) and was really into it when the 1996 team went to the final four (losing to stanford in the championship match). i watched the 1998 team beat BYU in the record setting longest women's volleyball match ever (a little over 3 and a half hours) in the WAC championship. i was crushed when the 1999 team (with heather bown) fell to texas a&m in the NCAA regionals in hawaii (i was there) when the final four was gonna be played in hawaii (that was also my first year as a student at UH). i coasted through all the great times during 2000-2003 with kim willoughby, lily kahumoku, maya gustin, jennifer carey, lauren duggins, etc, and went to all the "big" matches every year (those were the good ole days, 3 final four appearances in 4 years). i kept the faith through good regular seasons but disappointing "big match" loses during the kamana'o years 2004-2006 (except for that AWESOME win in the NCAA regionals at the stan sherrif over USC on my birthday!). i suffered through 2007 with the loss to utah state and middle tennesse to end the season in only the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament. i rebounded last year with kanani danielson, the spectacular 5-set win over washington, and the return of the famous hawaii ball-control. and this year i revel in the awesome-ness that is again rainbow wahine volleyball.

okay, well if that didn't sound creepy-obsessed enough yet, here's why i think this year's team is (finally!) another final four national championship contender:

1. serving - this year's team has got serving coming from all directions, aneli cubi-otineru's blistering jump serve, tough floaters from stephanie brant, amber kaufman, dani mafua, and jayme lee. on top of the tough serving, it's also very consistent, and when they're not getting aces they're forcing bad passes (also, UH's net play on overpasses has been stellar, i can only remember seeing one net violation on an overpass all year).

2. passing - with danielson, cubi-otineru, and liz ka'aihue returning hawai'i's ball control to hawai'i standards, they can finally run an offense...

3. quick tempo offense - whatever mafua lacks in creativity or decision-making (or whatever dave shoji lacks there), she makes up in setting a GREAT quick tempo offense. while i'd love to see more tandem plays, like the double-quick or the x-play, you gotta give mafua credit for pushing the tempo and getting her hitters one-on-one blockers a great percentage of the time. while i'd love to see more variety in the sets (why not include the d-set? where's the 31-set been all year?) and defiantely more involvement from the middles, you can't fault an offense that's plus-.300 and 3rd in the nation in hitting percentage.

4. blocking - with the addition of brittany hewitt (and even forsythe) it just seems like all of hawai'i's blocking has gotten better, which is probably why their digs don't show up in the national stats... they're getting a lot of touches off the block, that's a great thing.

5. all-court attack - one thing definately different from the last few years to this one is the all-court attack. remember 2002 & 2003? remember the diversity? remember getting four or five players in double digit kills? well, the games are shorter now (and the wahine are getting points in all kinds of ways), but still they are spreading the wealth. and what's even more impressive is that they're banging away from every corner of the court. the opponents are under constant fire. hawai'i players are more ready to take a rip at any time, from anywhere on court and that's an intimidating thing to see on the other side of the net.

so yeah, i know you've still got penn state up there, undefeated (for like, two years) in the top spot, but i still think UH has a great shot this year. of course, any of those top PAC-10 teams can pull an upset, and texas (although they just lost to iowa state) has destinee hooker and ashley engle so even if they get in passing trouble, heck they just throw it high and outside and hooker goes up and over everyone to put the ball down. but this year's team is the first one since the kim & lily days that i really think they can grab that national championship in december. a little ways to go before then, first of all, sunday is senior night, and i really think that this year's seniors will be hard to replace to have a great team again next year:

amber kaufman - she's my favorite. cause she gets angry! haha, plus you can't tell from tv, but man she skies! well, she's also a high jumper, even went to the US olympic trials (she placed 12th). i feel kinda bad for her because she was supposed to redshirt her freshman year, but there were so many injuries that year that she had to be "activated" halfway through the year and even then didn't get that much playing time. just imagine if she had one more year to play, woo, she'd be all-american i'm sure! heck, i'd put her on my all-american team this year just for that jump, man, tv doesn't do some things justice.

i remember hearing about cubi-otineru out of high school and i was thinking she was gonna be great from the start. then she didn't go straight to UH and i kinda forgot about her, i thought it was a big loss (like how jennifer saleamua ended up going to all-american status at nebraska after pulling out of UH), but what do you know she came back again and the hype was for real. finally UH has an ACTUAL right-side attack! plus the ball-handling skills and general smart play, she was a good one for sure. again, it's just too bad she didn't have a full career at UH, but that's how sports go right?

just take a look at stephanie brant. transfered from UC santa barbara where she made conference all-freshman, got thrust into that tough 2007 season, but still played pretty great, now is a spectacular server & defensive player. i love players who can dig, and she does it a great job right-side digging.

she's cute right? haha, okay well she's good too. it's just too bad she's so short, i'm sure she would've been the starting libero, but that's just the darn thing with sports, sometimes even if you're skilled, you can't beat another half-a-foot in height. even though she's backrow, a taller player just covers more ground. it's too bad, but as a sub she's still a great defender.

i always wonder if players who were starters for their old teams (like fowler for arkansas) regret transfering to a back-up role for a better team. then again, now she gets to be on a national championship contender team, so i guess that answers that question huh?

great group of seniors i think. even though there's a lot of talent coming back next year, i really think with these seniors hawai'i has a great shot at the national championship... only time will tell though... and i'll be watching!

go bows!