The University of Hawai'i Rainbow Wahine volleyball team opens practice tonight and there's nothing like seeing its opponents highly ranked in the first preseason poll to provide a sense of urgency to the drills.

The fourth-ranked Rainbow Wahine's first four matches will be against teams in the top seven of the preseason College Sports TV/American Volleyball Coaches Association poll that was released yesterday. Overall, seven of the first 10 matches will be against teams ranked in the top 13 by the 60 coaches who voted in the poll.

"The first three weeks are as tough as we've ever played," said UH coach Dave Shoji. "Actually, the first four weeks."

UH opens with No. 1-ranked Nebraska in Omaha, Neb., on Aug. 26 in the first round of the NACWAA Volleyball Showcase and will play either No. 3 Stanford or No. 5 Penn State in the second round.

"We're going to play two highly ranked teams and then we'd already scheduled No. 7 Southern California (Sept. 1) and Penn State (Sept. 2) and No. 13 UCLA (Sept. 10) at home, so it just turned out to be a killer, monster schedule," Shoji said.

After UCLA, UH has two matches, Sept. 16 and 17, with No. 2-ranked Washington at the Stan Sheriff Center.

"So, it is a pretty scary schedule," Shoji said. "When you schedule these things in advance you're not real sure who is gonna be real strong or maybe rebuilding, but obviously this is probably the toughest (early) schedule we've ever had."

UH, which finished eighth in the final 2004 poll, has all seven starters and 12 letter winners back from a team that went 30-1. It begins practice tonight at 6.

Nebraska received 35 of the 60 first-place votes. UH received one. Shoji, who votes in the poll, said the top part came out similar to how he had it on his ballot but declined to say who he voted first or where he had UH. "I don't remember," Shoji said.

In other news, Manoa Maniacs volleyball and football season tickets as well as a new all-sports pass went on sale yesterday to all UH system students. The tickets and passes are available at the Sheriff Center Box Office. For more information, visit www.hawaiiathletics.com.