University of Hawai'i senior Margaret Vakasausau shares her thoughts as the Rainbow Wahine prepared for yesterday's NCAA tournament semifinal match against Stanford.

It was an unfortunate time for Lily (Kahumoku) to get sick and she couldn't practice with us on Wednesday. But I'm sure she'll be OK. She's a tough girl and she wouldn't miss this for the world.

We went to the NCAA banquet last night at the New Orleans Zoo. It sounded a little weird but it was actually really nice.

I think it's so awesome how, in the sport of women's volleyball, players from all four teams can hangout together the night before our matches and still be totally cool with one another.

We're even taking pictures with some of the girls on the Stanford team.

After that when we went back (to the hotel), I was way too excited to get any sleep.

Today, we had a little walk through practice before watching tape on Stanford.

It's hard to believe that it was a little over a month ago we played these guys over in Honolulu.

The good thing is that we're way better now than we were that night.

But I'm sure they're playing a lot better, too.

If we come in with our A-game I think we'll be in good shape.

Go Bows!