Hope, it seems, springs eternal in Western Athletic Conference volleyball.

Hope that this just might, maybe, possibly be the year that somebody finally takes a match from the University of Hawai'i Rainbow Wahine after 106 consecutive and, mostly, one-sided attempts.

Hope that somehow, someway the slightest of cracks might begin to appear in the nearly decade-long dominance by UH.

Now, none of the coaches was actually crazy enough to predict in the conference preseason poll this week that somebody other than UH would win the WAC, not with the Rainbow Wahine returning all seven starters and 12 of 14 letter winners from a 30-1 team. (The only vote UH didn't get was Dave Shoji's because he was not allowed to vote for his own team). They might have hit their heads against a wall trying to beat UH but they haven't lost their marbles doing it.

They maintain they see light, having taken heart from the new makeup of the conference. "I think we are getting stronger as a conference and I would love to see Hawai'i have more competition," said Nevada's Devin Scruggs, whose Wolf Pack has pretty much gone it alone as the only WAC member to take UH to five games in the last two seasons.

"The WAC is definitely stronger than in the past," said Debbie Buchanan, Idaho's coach. "The weaker teams have left."

Rival coaches are looking at new road trip challenges for UH and lighting some candles. Mostly they are counting on the three newcomers, Idaho, New Mexico State and Utah State, all of whom have been NCAA Tournament teams recently, to give UH more of a test than the departed schools provided.

Considering Rice, Southern Methodist, Tulsa and Texas-El Paso were a combined 0-45 against UH in their WAC years, that should be a safe assumption.

"I think it is going to be more difficult with the three new teams," Dave Shoji said. "They are some difficult places to go play in."

The expectation, indeed, the common prayer is that a stronger top-to-bottom WAC will work to the field's advantage. That the more teams capable of pressing UH gives one of them a better chance of a breakthrough.

"We have given them a run (losing twice in five games and once in four games last year)," Scruggs said. "Getting close is great, but you need to finish it and we weren't able to do that in any of the three opportunities we had."

More than one coach hopes UH's mid-October road trip to Idaho and Boise State might be the place to spring an ambush. Or that Nevada will catch them after that.

"I think we are definitely getting stronger as a conference," Scruggs said. "It may be a couple more years before we can all get there, but we're trying."

In the WAC, hope endures as the quest continues.