UH volleyball women never lost sight of goal
| • | Big graphic: Tournament bracket |
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
Hawai'i stood in the eye of a red volleyball storm at Lincoln, Neb. Saturday and never blinked. The Rainbow Wahine don't do distraction.
Associated Press
That's why they will be in the NCAA Championship this week at New Orleans — two places where it is all too easy to get distracted. Hawai'i plays defending national champion Stanford in one semifinal Thursday at 2:30 p.m. Hawai'i time. Top-seeded USC takes on fifth-seeded Florida in the other. The Hawai'i-Stanford match is scheduled to be shown live on ESPN2.
Hawai'i's Kim Willoughby grew up less than an hour from New Orleans.
"It's going to be Mardi Gras when we get there even though it's not the season," said Kim Willoughby, the 'Bows' resident Bayou expert who grew up less than an hour from the Big Easy. "We're going to make it Mardi Gras."
By now it's obvious that these Rainbows can concentrate under any conditions.
They politely ignored those who told them before the season started that they should be in this week's final four. They shrugged off a preseason that lost its unbeaten luster when opponents began to free-fall in the rankings.
They took their only licking from Stanford and kept on ticking, improving every area the Cardinal exploited in the final weeks of the season. They even found strength from the few WAC teams that challenged them, openly thanking those opponents for having the guts to give as well as receive.
When the NCAA Committee gave the country's second-ranked team a No. 6 seed — behind three schools with losses to teams outside the top six — and shipped it away for the regionals, Hawai'i acknowledged the insult but didn't get mad.
It got even.
"We just took it and prepared for it," Shoji said. "We didn't whine, we didn't complain, it was just fate that matched us up here in Nebraska."
As fate would have it, Hawai'i (34-1) defeated the 31-2 Cornhuskers Saturday in front of their soldout, stunned-to-silence crowd. It was only Nebraska's second loss in 39 postseason matches at the Coliseum, an outdated venue that falls woefully short of the Huskers' first-class fans and program.
The Rainbow Wahine overwhelmed the atmosphere and the trio of Nebraska All-Americans whose careers ended that night. Hawai'i outhit the Huskers and out-dug them. They out-served and out-passed the team that had stuffed them in consecutive matches at the 2000 final four and 2001 season opener.
Beyond all that, UH discovered that for all the Cornhuskers' talent, they did not have a terminator.
"Nebraska is not a great offensive team," Shoji allowed after the win. "From the numbers, we suspected they didn't have a go-to player like we do. And we have two."
Associated Press
With every other Rainbow playing their role perfectly, Willoughby and Lily Kahumoku hammered the Huskers with 25 kills apiece.
Hawai'i's Maja Gustin (12) and Kim Willoughby (3) attempted to block a kill attempt by Nebraska's Jennifer Saleaumua Saturday in the Central Regional final of the NCAA Championships. The Rainbow Wahine defeated the Cornhuskers to advance to the final four in New Orleans.
Kahumoku's came at the most opportune times — the final five points of the decisive third game and three that helped Hawai'i pull away in Game 4 — as she went into what UH senior Jennifer Carey called "The Lily Zone."
Willoughby, the regional MVP, was everywhere — digging, serving and hitting until Nebraska couldn't take anymore. She showed no lingering effects from an apparent leg injury suffered during the match.
"I think God was happy the day he made Kim," Kahumoku said. "She's a genetic masterpiece. She physically is so overwhelming that you really can't stop her. When the ball is coming down at you from 10 feet what are you going to do? It's not only coming high, it's hard. She puts some of the men to shame."
Willoughby laughed out loud at the last statement.
"I'm not saying you're masculine Kim," Kahumoku added. "I'm just saying you bring it."
The Rainbow Wahine brought it Saturday, in a raucous match that made the other one-sided regionals look regular season by comparison. For that, Hawai'i thanked Nebraska and its gracious fans and looked into the fastest way out of Lincoln and into New Orleans.
"That was a huge payback win for us," Carey said. "It was for both those losses. It's so sweet not to even let them get to the final four. It's such a special feeling to be one of the top four teams left. I can just imagine how much it hurts not to be able to be there — especially those seniors who have been there the last three years."
But for Hawai'i, particularly Willoughby, who reserved today for her mother's cooking immediately after the victory, Mardi Gras is about to begin. Maybe it started Saturday night.
"Honestly, that's the best win I've had since I've been at UH," Willoughby said. "Even better than Long Beach State when I was a freshman. This is on another level. Nebraska just killed us in final four, it was frustrating. The next time we didn't have our same team but it didn't matter because they just dominated that match. I felt really, really bad. Coming here, I was like, this is my chance.
"I looked on the other side and they were frustrated. But even when we were down we were celebrating and fired up. We were not going to lose, it didn't matter what happened. That's what made me feel like this was the best game in my life."
