Wahine to open with Texas … and sand
By Cindy Luis
I was surprised that it would be Texas but … this is Ann’s story from Wednesday’s paper. Hagin’s departure buried at the bottom.
Dave Shoji isn’t messing around with his 2013 volleyball schedule. At Monday’s Rainbow Wahine banquet, he dropped the news to his team that Hawaii would open Aug. 30 against NCAA champion Texas.
The schedule is not finalized, but Shoji said he is “99 percent sure” UH will open against the Longhorns, who swept Oregon last month to capture their third national title, but first since they defeated Hawaii in the 1988 NCAA final.
Both Hawaii (Emily Maeda) and Texas (Sha’Dare McNeal) lost just one senior. The Wahine could return eight seniors, including first-team All-American Emily Hartong. The Longhorns will have four, including Bailey Webster — the final four’s most outstanding player — and Hawaii Baptist Academy graduate Sarah Palmer.
Shoji has 25 dates scheduled and hopes to reach the NCAA maximum of 28. UCLA, San Diego, Arizona, Northwestern and New Mexico State will also be here.
Tickets will go on sale soon for a March 15 exhibition against Texas Tech at the Stan Sheriff Center. The Red Raiders lost two seniors off last year’s 14-18 team.
The second sand volleyball season could start that same day. Coach Scott Wong hopes to announce his schedule soon. He already has a roster and it looks little like last year. There are 11 full-time sand players — eight more than the inaugural season. All but two are transfers. Ten indoor players fill the roster.
The best of the transfers may be Brittany Tiegs, who helped Florida State finish third at the inaugural AVCA National Championships. Tiegs was named to the first Sand Volleyball All-America team, along with Hawaii’s Jane Croson. Tiegs did not receive her release from FSU and will redshirt this season.
The other new players are eligible, including Hawaii Pacific transfers Natasha Bell and Ku‘ulei Zalopany, and Karlee Riggs. She was named the Orange Empire Conference Most Valuable Player last month for her sophomore indoor season at Orange Coast College.
Arizona announced last week that it would add a sand team, joining Pac-12 programs Cal, Stanford, UCLA and USC. Nebraska became the first Big Ten sand team. There will be 29 programs competing this year, nearly double last year. Another 47 are considering adding the sport in 2014, according to Arizona officials.
A sport achieves NCAA status after 40 teams have competed two consecutive seasons. Pepperdine won the first national championship, beating Long Beach State last spring.
The UH sand team is in its third week of practice. The Hawaii indoor team is in the midst of individual workouts without Stephanie Hagins, a 6-foot-4 reserve middle. She left school after transferring to UH from Washington State last year. Spring team practice starts next month.
Volleyshots
Has anyone been by the new on campus sand facility recently ? I’m curious if there is actually any work going on.
USC has recently shown photos of their new sand facility and for a school with so much money I wasn’t impressed, check it out.
http://tinyurl.com/a4jr933
Sorry about that link,it was working when it was posted ,now says access denied.
Hawaii Athletics twitter says Hartong will be featured on Fox Sports Prime Ticket this Saturday at 1:30 pm Hawaii time.
Channel 228 and 1228
Cindy, by Stephanie Hagins leaving, does that mean, Shoji has 1 extra scholarship to give out for 2013?
Didn’t think Hagins was on scholarship.
Cindy do you know if TK is playing this fall as a redshirt senior? She’s on schedule to graduate in June and is in the same situation as Hewitt was.
Have heard nothing to indicate she won’t be back. Hewitt a little different than TK I feel. Hewitt’s back was hurting her to the point she almost didn’t play her junior year.
Sorry didn’t make it clear on the same situation part, I meant academically. Working on her masters I guess.
I don’t even wanna think about how thin UH will be at middle blocker if TK moves on. Manu Olevao might have to train at middle. But hopefully UH picks up a transfer like Bown/Prince.
Nikki Taylor would be a better choice, at 6’4 and played MB until the switch to OH.
No I see Nikki starting on the right and she is too valuable.
I remember Kaela Goodman training at middle a few years back?? Maybe she would be a better choice, she is a terrific blocker..
We both maybe right and wrong with our guessing. Right now TK is coming back so we have 3 MBs. I’m pretty sure Shoji has been working on either picking up a MB player or have someone in mind on the roster to train for MB backup. The inside people knew Hagins was leaving the program more than two months ago. Picking up a quality HS or transfer player for MB could present a problem with no scholarship available. So we wait and see what happens over the months until August to see how it pans out.
Speaking of MBs, is UH still interested in trying to get Annie Mitchem? Anyone know what’s going on with her? Is she still playing volleyball? If so, where is she now? If so, is she still in demand? Anyone in the know? Any info is appreciated.
She’s on the roster at Irvine Valley College but listed as RS along with four others.I’m assuming RS means redshirt.
I might be in the minority here, but if Nikki’s a true LS, then I’d prefer Shoji train her at LS rather than RS.
Reason why I feel that way is b/c elite collegiate teams seem to have really tall RS hitters (i.e. Penn State, Nebraska, Stanford, Oregon, Illinois). If Dave can get his relatively shorter RS hitters who are up at the net to at least slow down their opponent’s tall LS’s kill attempt w/ their block attempt so that UH’s back row players can dig and pass the ball then UH has a chance to score… if the pass is bad, UH’s setter can set Nikki on the left, and w/ her height and Dave developing her game, she can compete (much like Mason) against tall opposing RS hitters who are up at the net.
Hope I make sense here… Have insomnia yet so tired… Anyway, any thoughts? I’m interested to hear various opinions b/c I know there are a lot of fans who are wayyyy more knowledgeable in the game of vball than I am; and I would really like a good civil discussion about Nikki and which position Dave should train her at.
Can Passi become another Aneli, does anyone know?
NO Aneli is on another level, but she can be another Satele (but is better in the backrow than Chan) I think Passi will be the serving sub this year, from what I saw in the JC national championship , her serve is very good and she has lots of energy.
She is redshirting so she would have to be a serving sub in 2014
If she can contribute right away I do not see her redshirting….
If she was promised two years scholarship, she can just play her 5th year on a sand scholarship…
2013 is UH’s best chance of a national championship run in quite some time with a legit POY candidate. Why redshirt someone that might help you get some wins with her strong serving and backrow play???
I disagree, until Shoji figures out a way for Uiato to set the middles more often and figure out the RS situation to become unpredictable offensively, I see us going as far as final four but will loose on a 5 set thriller because the opponents blockers will camp out of the Wahine’s LS attacker.
An offensive RS might help as well.
Passi said that she would pay her own way in 2013 and redshirt and if everything works out she may have a scholarship in 2014. This was the statement from her when she announced that transfer to Hawaii.