Spring exhibitions are meant to show what needs to be worked on. What Hawaii showed Thursday night is there is much work to be done.

While Minnesota appeared to have little drop-off from its final-four teams of the past two Decembers, the Rainbow Wahine were just off for most of the 105 minutes at the Stan Sheriff Center. As associate head coach Jeff Hall summed it up, “We got beat in every facet of the game. We played terrible.”

There would be little argument from either the Wahine players or from the 1,291 fans in attendance. Freshman hitter Alexis Hart put on an exhibition of her own with 25 kills as the Golden Gophers won 25-19, 25-18, 25-19, 25-23 in a match that both sides agreed would be played to a minimum of four sets.

Hawaii was outblocked 16-1 “and I take credit for that failure,” Hall said. “We didn’t work a ton of blocking (the past two weeks of practice) and it was terrible for sure.

“We worked a ton on our serve-and-pass and we didn’t do that well for three sets. They absolutely torched us with their serves and we were out of system for three of the four sets.”

Hart had half of Minnesota’s kills and freshman middle Morgan Taylor was in on 10 of the Gophers’ 16 blocks. Junior libero Dalianliz Rosado played amazing defense, finishing with 27 digs.

Hawaii, using 15 players and almost as many combinations, got 15 kills from junior middle Emily Maglio and 12 from sophomore McKenna Granato. Freshman setter Norene Iosia finished with a double-double (40 assists-11 digs) and junior libero Savanah Kahakai 14 digs.

“There were pieces that were good, but it was a bad game, we didn’t play our best,” Maglio said. “Our connection was a bit iffy. I know we can do a lot better.”

“We showed we have a lot to work on, whether it’s as a team or individually,” added Granato.

Hawaii was fairly good early (Set 1) and late (Set 4) but not good enough in either to pull out a win.

In Set 1, the Gophers broke an 18-18 tie with a 5-0 run behind the serving of junior hitter Alyssa Goehner. Hawaii had no answer for Hart, who accounted for four of the Gophers’ final six points with four kills, and Taylor the other two points on blocks.

Things never got much better.

Set 4 was as tight as Set 1, with the Wahine using four of their seven aces in taking a 21-19 lead and forcing Minnesota coach Hugh McCutcheon to call his only timeout of the night.

The Gophers caught the Wahine at 22, then capped the 3-0 run with an ace by Rosado. Freshman hitter McKenna Ross tied it at 23, but Hart answered for Minnesota, closing it out herself with two kills.

Sophomore All-America setter Samantha Seliger-Swenson had the Gophers hitting .319, while Hawaii finished at .131, including .000 in Set 2.

Sophomore Casey Castillo, looking to replace departed second-team All-America opposite Nikki Taylor, added eight kills for Hawaii.

Hall said he was disappointed in the tempo of his offense and subbed Iosia out for junior setter Kendra Koelsch at one point.

“We were trying to go faster, it’s what we had worked on,” he said. “Norene responded, but she also was running all over the place. Our passing was horrendous.

“When we were in-system, we looked pretty good. When we weren’t … ”

Hawaii finishes its exhibition season Tuesday with a 7 p.m. match against Kansas.

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