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Hawai’i will have a conference road trip unlike any other team in the nation for the 2014 season.
Coach Charlie Wade said in a recent interview with Off the Block that Hawai’i will play two-match road series against both Stanford and Pacific within a five-day span during the upcoming season.
Wade said he would prefer to avoid this many conference matches in such a short amount of time. The coach said, though, external factors resulted in him requesting Pacific move their original weekend series to Monday and Tuesday night.
“It puts us in a four matches in five days situation but it allows us to miss less class time and avoid another flight and hotel,” Wade said.
This is the second consecutive year that the Rainbow Warriors will play four road MPSF matches within five days. Hawai’i last season finished a condensed road trip against UCLA and UC Irvine at 1-3 with their only victory coming in the series finale versus the Bruins.
Hawai’i because of its geography is the only MPSF team that schedules a shortened four-match conference road trip.
Wade said these types of road trips have created a challenge for his team in previous years.
“We are at a disadvantage,” he said. “No one else ever has to do a thing like that. That’s a challenge.”
While preferring to avoid these scheduling conflicts, Wade said the league and coaches in the conference have been more than accommodating to work with the Rainbow Warriors and their traveling challenges. The coach also said in previous years the MPSF has worked hard to avoid Hawai’i having many back-to-back weeks on the road.
“You try to get some balance,” Wade said. “The league has done a nice job of recognizing some of the challenges we have and helping avoid the things that put us at a real disadvantage.”
The Rainbow Warriors return a majority of their starters for the upcoming season after winning four of their final six regular season matches to qualify for the final berth to the MPSF Tournament. In addition, Hawai’i in the postseason opening round almost upset then-No. 1 BYU before losing in five games.
Hawai’i last season also went a combined 3-1 against Stanford and Pacific — including splitting their two-match series against Stanford, which finished at No. 6 the national rankings.