The defending national champion University of Hawaii men’s volleyball team will enter 2022 where it ended last season — as the nation’s top-ranked program.

The Rainbow Warriors were voted No. 1 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association Division I-II preseason poll released on Monday. UH held the top spot for the final 10 polls of the 2021 season — finishing at No. 1 for the second time in program history — and received 12 of 19 first-place votes in the 2022 preseason poll.

UH was followed by UCLA (one first-place vote), Pepperdine (one) and Long Beach State (three) and Penn State. No. 6 BYU received two first-place votes.

The Warriors will face No. 7 Loyola-Chicago in the Outrigger Challenge to open the season. The series is set for Jan. 5 and 7 at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

The Big West placed five teams in the top-15 poll, with No. 10 UC San Diego, No. 11 UC Santa Barbara and No. 12 UC Irvine joining Hawaii and Long Beach State.

UH returns three starters — setter Jakob Thelle, middle blocker Guilherme Voss and outside hitter Chaz Galloway — from the 2021 team that went 17-1 and swept BYU in the national championship match on May 8 at the Covelli Center in Columbus, Ohio.

“That’s the standard,” UH assistant coach Josh Walker told reporters on Monday. “As soon as the last ball dropped last year and we got to the point where we were focusing on this year, the goal was to absolutely get back to having a chance to repeat and we think we have a really good shot at doing that. The fall went really well for us, we got to go to Southern California and played really well, so we absolutely think we’ve earned the No. 1 ranking.”

Thelle was a second-team selection on the Off the Block preseason All-American team released on Monday. Voss also received votes.

Rainbow Wahine receive votes

The UH women’s volleyball team received 12 points in the final AVCA Division I Coaches Top 25 poll of the season. The total left the Rainbow Wahine tied with Dayton and Rice for 29th in the voting.

UH (22-8) received votes in the preseason poll and the first poll of the regular season before dropping out in a 3-5 start to the season. The Wahine then went 18-2 in Big West play to capture the conference championship. They knocked off then-No. 23 Mississippi State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before closing the season with a loss to Washington, which finished at No. 12.

Wisconsin topped the final poll after edging Nebraska in five sets in the national championship match on Saturday in Columbus, Ohio.