Hawaii men’s volleyball coach Charlie Wade is well aware of what lies ahead when the fourth-ranked Rainbow Warriors return home from this week’s trip to North Carolina.
A week out from Hawaii’s Big West opener against No. 2 UC Irvine, the Rainbow Warriors (9-1) will play four games in three days starting today with Belmont Abbey (6-5), the preseason favorite of the Conference Carolinas.
Hawaii will also play Queens (9-5) twice and face Catawba College (6-6), a first-year Division II school.
The Rainbow Warriors have had 13 days to recover from their first loss of the season, to Stanford in four sets. With UC Irvine coming up next week, Wade said he won’t change much about how he approaches these next four matches with the Anteaters series on a Friday and Sunday instead of the usual Wednesday and Friday.
“Am I aware of it? Sure. But I’m more focused on taking care of business and seeing what we got,” Wade said in a phone interview Wednesday. “Would we like to get some other guys some run? Yeah. We’ll see how it goes, but we get home Sunday and then have a full week to prepare for a Friday match.”
Wade’s options are somewhat limited in key spots this week. Junior setter Vladimir Kubr came down with the flu in practice right before the team left Monday, leaving freshman Victor Lowe as the only other active setter on the roster behind starter Tread Rosenthal.
Senior outside hitter Clay Wieter, who started the first seven matches of the season, is dealing with a back issue that has limited his play.
“That probably puts a little more on Tread’s plate,” Wade said. “You’d like to get some guys some run, but they are not 100 percent so it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
Hawaii’s nine-match winning streak ended against Stanford in what was its fourth match in eight days against a top-10 opponent.
UH dropped the last three sets by two points.
“There’s no panic. They played, really, really well,” Wade said. “The thing that we have predicated ourselves on in recent years is serving really tough late in sets and we just didn’t do that, and you know there’s a fine line in men’s collegiate volleyball among the top teams.”
UH is 6-0 all-time against Queens and Belmont Abbey, all sweeps.
Queens, which is in its second year in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, swept Belmont Abbey and beat Catawba College in four sets this season.
Catawba College is the fourth first-year program Hawaii has played in the last three seasons.
UH hopes to get freshman outside hitter Adrien Roure going again. He started the season hitting .345 or better in his first three matches.
In his last four matches against BYU and Stanford, Roure’s hitting percentage was a combined .173 with 42 kills and 24 errors.
Hawaii will head home Sunday and then prepare for the two critical matches against the Anteaters. UC Irvine, which remained No. 2 in the AVCA Top this week, beat No. 5 USC twice last week. UCI has also beaten BYU twice and Stanford twice and did not lose a set to the Cardinal.
RAINBOW WARRIORS
VOLLEYBALL
Today, 2 p.m., Wheeler Center, Belmont, N.C.
No. 4 Hawaii (9-1) vs. Belmont Abbey (6-5)
>> Stream: Conference Carolinas Digital Network
>> Radio: 1420-AM / 92.7-FM
Friday, 1 p.m., Levine Center, Charlotte, N.C.
Hawaii vs. Queens (9-5)
>> Stream: ESPN+
>> Radio: 1420-AM / 92.7-FM
Saturday, 6 a.m., Goodman Arena, Salisbury, N.C.
Hawaii vs. Catawba College (6-6)
>> Stream: FloCollege.com
>> Radio: 1420-AM / 92.7-FM
Saturday, 1 p.m., Levine Center, Charlotte, N.C.
Hawaii vs. Queens
>> Stream: ESPN+
>> Radio: 1420-AM / 92.7-FM
