For one of the few times since it joined the Western Athletic Conference in 1996, the University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine volleyball team actually comes into a season with something to prove in the conference.

To prove to the WAC and, maybe, themselves.

For years the Rainbow Wahine mostly tried to keep from nodding off during conference play, stifling yawns more than sweating the competition as they roared through the WAC to 15 consecutive conference regular-season titles and 10 tournament championships in a row (some years there was no tournament).

But in this, their last go-around as WAC members, there is a parting message to be left: Aloha means annihilation.

In a preseason poll of WAC coaches announced Friday, the Wahine were picked to win the conference, again. But this is the first time in this millenium that they aren’t defending tournament champions despite a 29-3 overall record and 16-0 conference regular-season mark in 2010. After the stunningly abrupt ending to their seasons — WAC and overall — last year, you get the feeling there is a statement to be made about all this.

At least you get that inkling from head coach Dave Shoji, who said in an email, “(I) haven’t gotten over it yet. It drives me every day.”

“It” of course being the Wahine’s shocking sweep by Utah State (Utah State?) in the final of the WAC tournament in Las Vegas, which was followed two matches later by a season-ending sweep in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Not since 1997 had the Wahine dropped two of their last three matches of the season. Which was also the last time they lost in the WAC tournament.

So, when Shoji says the goal for this season is to once more, “run the table” in the WAC, “including the WAC tourney,” you are left with the feeling the Wahine want not only to recapture the crown but leave no doubt who sits atop the throne.

They had pretty much done that in winning 23 consecutive matches — 17 of them against WAC competition — in 2010 before letting up on the gas and succumbing to Utah State in the WAC tournament. The same Aggies team they had twice swept in the regular season.

Utah State’s victory has likely emboldened the opposition. It has, at the very least, given the rest of the conference some hopes to nurture over these last nine months as they ponder what the departures of setter Dani Mafua and libero Elizabeth Kaaihue and the arrival of five freshmen might mean.

You can bet they would savor sending the Wahine off to the Big West for 2012 with the kind of swift uno-dos-adios kick that Utah State applied in November. They might even believe it is possible, despite what Friday’s coaches’ poll suggested.

As such it will be up to the Wahine to reassert their former dominance. It will be one last opportunity to remind the others that an era is changing in WAC volleyball only because UH has chosen to move on to new opportunities in another conference.

Not because a monarch has been toppled and sent fleeing.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com.