Ready or not, a new-look Hawaii women’s volleyball team begins the 2024 season Friday night with the Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic.

The four-time defending Big West champions lost nine players off of last season’s roster. They will debut a much different lineup against a team, who like UH, advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season.

SMU, which won the American Athletic Conference last year, makes its debut as an Atlantic Coast Conference member inside of SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center against the Wahine. UH will also play San Diego, a common opponent in recent years, on Sunday.

Hawaii head coach Robyn Ah Mow has preached patience during fall camp as she tries to replace both starting middle blockers, a starting outside hitter and multiple key contributors with starting experience off the bench.

A returning nucleus of fifth-year starting setter Kate Lang, senior libero Tayli Ikenaga and junior outside hitter Caylen Alexander will lead the way early in the season while UH figures out who will supplement them in the starting lineup.

“It’s a lot of new girls and they are working hard, sweating, and having energy, but it is a young group and they still have to learn to take all of the feedback the coaches are giving them and implement that into what they are doing each day,” Ah Mow said. “It’s going to go up and down.”

It will take a team effort to replace two-time third-team All-American Amber Igiede and Kennedi Evans. Evans stepped up last season to provide a formidable 1-2 punch in the middle.

Junior Jacyn Bamis, who was the only middle blocker on the roster in the spring, enters the season as the only UH middle with Division I college experience.

It won’t take long for freshmen Miliana Sylvester from University Lab and Maddie Way from Sierra Canyon (Calif.) to see the court as they battle for a starting spot right out of the gate.

Sophomore outside hitter Stella Adeyemi, who only played in 12 sets last year, is another inexperienced player who will have to carry a much bigger load this season.

The wait, whether it’s been three weeks for some of the incoming freshmen, or more than a year for players like Adeyemi and Bamis, is over.

“I’m very, very excited,” Bamis said. “Since I was here in the spring alone, it has helped me a lot. It was a lot of one-on-one sessions, a lot of things that help me not just on the court but off the court. I look at my block work at home and learned different techniques that I can use to my advantage to keep continuing to succeed in volleyball.”

Especially early on, the core group of Lang, Ikenaga and Alexander will play huge roles not just with what they do on the court, but how they elevate the confidence and abilities of the new players around them.

It will require the same patience that Ah Mow has tried to find within herself.

“I feel like, Tayli is there, she’s learned the patience … she picked it up last year and worked on that this year,” Ah Mow said. “Kate has to work with different hitters, especially the middles, and she’s got to have patience with that. Caylen wants her season to be better than last year so hers is going to be hard patience because she wants to be this and do all of this and the younger ones are going to have to catch on.

“Those three together are good leaders for the team.”

Hawaii expected a boost Wednesday when sophomore Tali Hakas from Israel was scheduled to join the team after playing for her national team this summer.

Hakas, who started 13 matches and made the All-Big West Freshman team last season, would only have 48 hours with her new teammates before Friday’s opener, but Ah Mow didn’t rule her out of playing.

“The best six at the time will play,” Ah Mow said. “It’s not like she was just sitting at home on the couch, she was with her national team actually playing, actually competing. (She’s) got to do all of her compliance stuff before she can play and she was like, ‘I’ll get it done.’”

All three teams in the tournament this weekend received votes in the AVCA/Taraflex Preseason Division I poll. SMU received 76 votes, ranking 30th with Hawaii (20 votes) and USD (19 votes) right next to each other.

Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic

At SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center

Friday

Hawaii vs. SMU, 7 p.m.

Saturday

SMU vs. San Diego, 7 p.m.

Sunday

Hawaii vs. San Diego, 5 p.m.

>> TV: Spectrum OC16 (Hawaii matches only)

>> Radio: 1420-AM /97.5 FM (Hawaii matches only)