Through All-Americans and injuries, Olympians and down years, and a steady stream of strange faces, Hawai'i has kept its death grip on Western Athletic Conference volleyball. The Rainbow Wahine are 201-5 against conference opponents since joining the WAC and have won the last 10 championships.

Their dominance has been tested the past two years more than at any time since Brigham Young fled the WAC after falling to Hawai'i in a legendary 1998 WAC Tournament final.

New Mexico State beat the 'Bows in Las Cruces two years ago, blowing up an NCAA-record 132-match conference winning streak that ran on for eight years. Last season, Utah State swept Hawai'i in Hawai'i, ending a 108-match home conference winning streak that dated back to the Big West.

This weekend the WAC is back, with its crazy travel and sometimes unorthodox opponents. The seventh-ranked Rainbows take on Idaho tonight and Boise State tomorrow. Their focus is to tune everything out and return to the "uno-dos-adios" tradition of the not-so-recent past.

"I definitely think it will come down to what happens on our side of the court, not what they do," UH senior Jessica Keefe said. "It's going to be about how good we can get between now and the end of the season. What can we do to become a better team, without feeling so much pressure from the other side of the net, but more the pressure on ourselves. We know what kind of team we can be."

That was evident in Saturday's five-set upset of then-No. 9 Washington. The Huskies were easy to get up for. Now the 'Bows need to focus on playing well in Ruston, La., and Logan, Utah, and getting better.

"We have to be disciplined within ourselves, have our own will," UH junior Aneli Cubi-Otineru said. "We have to motivate ourselves to win, to get better every single time, do all the simple things well."

The concentration now is on blocking, ballhandling — always — and Idaho, which had the best preseason of any WAC team other than UH (7-2). The Vandals (7-4) played Middle Tennessee tougher in their season-opener than Hawai'i did to end last season and swept Washington State, Eastern Washington and Notre Dame.

They return everybody, for the second straight year. That includes Haley Larsen and Anna McKinney, who are among the nation's top 15 in kills and blocks. They lead the WAC in pretty much every statistic Hawai'i does not and, like the 'Bows, have shown a renewed enthusiasm for fighting back.

"The one thing that is different than last year is they don't back away, don't give up," Idaho coach Debbie Buchanan said of her players. "For us, we just have to make sure they are prepared at the beginning of the match."

New Mexico State, Hawai'i's only real rival the last two years, has started slowly. The Aggies (4-5) had four players on the preseason all-conference team, but go into conference play with a losing record for the first time in seven years. They are hitting just .156, middle of the pack in every WAC statistic and have lost to three top-15 teams.

Coach Mike Jordan hopes that scheduling pays dividends. "We definitely learned a lot about ourselves," he said. "We know exactly what we need to improve to beat great teams.

"We've had good teams, obviously. This year's team is not as good as last year yet. This year's team has a lot more room for improvement than last year's team. Hopefully, in three weeks, this team will be a hell of a lot better than we are now."

Coincidentally or not, Hawai'i plays the Aggies twice in the next three weeks. NMSU hosts the 'Bows next Saturday, on their first road trip, then comes here Oct. 12. Hawai'i's second trip starts at Utah State, where those Aggies are trying to use last season's stunning upset as a "jumping off point more anything else — here's what we can accomplish," according to Grayson DuBose, the 2007 WAC Coach of the Year.

USU (2-9) lost two starters to injury early, but have rallied the last week to upset then-No. 15 Purdue and sweep Utah Valley, which plays here in November. It has five starters back, but Amanda Nielson, who averaged more than five kills, is gone.

It will take time to adjust, but the Aggies have recently shown an ability to "grind it out and keep it close." With the new 25-point scoring system, that means more than ever before. DuBose calls it "the great equalizer." After last year, that worries UH coach Dave Shoji.

So does the WAC, which has gone 34-47 in the preseason, but has wins over teams like Washington, Notre Dame, Missouri, UC Santa Barbara, Sacramento State, Purdue and Minnesota.

"Almost every match gives you some kind of challenge," said Shoji, who is giving his team numerical goals, such as certain hitting and passing percentages, for the WAC season. "It rarely goes according to plan. Some teams are unorthodox and sometimes we don't show up in the right frame of mind and the other team does.

"We have to understand that to get where we want to get, and that's the final four, we have to keep improving. We're going to practice hard and demand players get better in the practice gym. ... I would like to be noticeably better by the time WAC Tournament comes around."

QUICK SETS

UH defensive specialist Jayme Lee is back at practice this week after being out with a shoulder injury.

In this week's WAC statistics, Nickie Thomas is No. 1 in hitting at .421, with Amber Kaufman second (.354), Stephanie Ferrell fourth (.330), Kanani Herring eighth (.291) and Aneli Cubi-Otineru ninth (.269). Kaufman is first in aces (0.61), Dani Mafua second in assists (10.90) and Thomas seventh in blocking (1.04), while Jamie Houston is second in kills (4.41) and Herring fifth (3.98). Herring is also eighth in digs (3.23) and Tara Hittle 10th (3.09).

Hawai'i leads the hitting (.288), assists (13.72) and kills (14.59) team statistics, while Idaho leads the league in opponent hitting percentage (.149), aces (1.49) and digs (16.24).

The schedule is set for this year's WAC Tournament, Nov. 20-23 at the Stan Sheriff Center, with matches beginning at 9:30 a.m. the first day.