LAS VEGAS — To find more evidence that Las Vegas is Hawai'i's ninth island look no further than this week's Western Athletic Conference Volleyball Tournament, and Raeceen Woolford and Ryan Tsuji.

A year ago Tsuji, in his eighth year as the Rainbow Wahine's manager/coach/spiritual guide, was showing the team video of Hawai'i's preposterous victory over Brigham Young in the 1998 WAC championship at Las Vegas. It was the longest NCAA match in history, UH prevailing 24-22 in the fifth.

"I said, 'Since this moment we've won every WAC championship and look how big it was then,' " Tsuji recalled. "Not every conference has a championship and this is an automatic NCAA berth. I think sometimes they lose the meaning of it."

What it also means, beginning tonight against Fresno State (15-15), is continuing a Hawai'i tradition of almost absolute dominance. The third-ranked 'Bows (26-2) have won the last 11 WAC titles, and lost only three conference matches in that decade-plus. It is also a crucial step in the eyes of the committee that will seed the NCAA Championship Sunday.

For Woolford, a former Rainbow Wahine and now Miss Hawai'i, this week in Las Vegas is a glimpse at past and future lives. The Miss America Pageant is here Jan. 30 and Woolford has brought the same devotion to that cause she did in her five years as a walk-on with UH.

She has not touched a volleyball since her senior season (2007). The night UH lost to Middle Tennessee in the NCAA's second round that year she contacted Miss Hawai'i officials. She was third runner-up a year ago and won the crown this June.

She describes her life now as a "professional volunteer" and she is thriving. She has learned, in large part because of her volleyball experience, to seize the moment and not get too caught up in plans. Her goals now are drawn in broader strokes — "try to be a worthwhile human being" — but just as full of faith.

"I no longer say, 'This is what I'm going to do with my life,' " Woolford says. "I say, 'I just want to do God's will for the rest of my life.' Whatever that is, wherever that takes me, whatever door of opportunity opens, no matter what I had thought.

"Obviously, this was not the plan for my life. I never, never would have thought of this."

To her surprise, she has found herself to be a huge volleyball fan, particularly this season when the 'Bows "are just so darned entertaining." She loves their resilience and "good humor on the court."

She also sees a new "synergy" on this team. Tsuji, now Director of Extension for New Hope church, sees it too. He calls it a comfort level and responsibility to and for each other.

"They are at a point where they know how to counsel each other," he says. "It's not necessarily coming from the coaching staff. Players have taken that on and really tried to encourage each other."

They have seen other, more tangible, improvements.

Serving is more aggressive and UH has remained relentless at pushing the tempo of its attack. Sophomore Kanani Danielson has taken her game to another level and Brittany Hewitt has given the 'Bows a true blocking threat in a breakout freshman year.

Tsuji says he underestimated "how much certain players would step up" and gives his highest marks to the passing of Danielson, Aneli Cubi-Otineru and Liz Ka'aihue.

Woolford focuses on her forte. "I think the defense is admirable," she says. "I love to see bodies flying. There's a lot of passion and the need to get on the floor because every ball must get up. I love that."

Hawai'i still has to find a will and a way to overcome much bigger NCAA Tournament opponents, and that synergy has not been seriously tested in some two months.

Maybe it will be tonight or in tomorrow's WAC championship. Woolford and Tsuji hope the Rainbows can focus on the task at hand in the Orleans Arena before they head out into the tall trees that populate the NCAA Tournament wilderness.

"I hope they feel like this is our last WAC Tournament," Tsuji says. "The last time they get to play with Aneli and Amber (Kaufman). Find value in it and make it important."