Wahine water polo faces LBSU in home finale

Senior night will have to wait — about a year — for the University of Hawaii water polo team.

Without a senior on a young roster, the Rainbow Wahine will close the home schedule on Saturday without the traditional postgame farewells.

In the meantime, the Wahine continue the growth process as they head toward the postseason.

“This is a young team and it takes a long time to gel,” UH coach Maureen Cole said. “Last year’s team had a bunch of girls together for years and this year it’s not even nine months yet and we’re a bunch of girls from all over the world playing together. It’s getting better and getting to know each other every day in the water.

“It’s a season process and it’s four years. You get better and better at understanding the way somebody wants the ball or what you need to do defensively and what a team’s tendencies are. It’s a young team and the learning curve is high and we’re still learning a lot every day and that’s a good thing.”

With several freshmen playing key roles, the Wahine have found enough chemistry along the way to stay at or near the top of the Big West standings going into their regular-season finale against Long Beach State on Saturday.

Seventh-ranked UH (18-6, 3-1 Big West) can clinch a share of the Big West regular-season title in the 6 p.m. match against No. 16 Long Beach State (15-9, 2-0) at Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex.

UH’s seeding in the upcoming conference tournament will be determined next week when the rest of the conference closes the regular season. The Wahine won the Big West tournament last season and will look to defend the title in this year’s event set for April 29 to May 1 at UC Santa Barbara.

“It’s really important just to finish strong,” Cole said. “Going into the tournament we want to be playing good water polo and this is our last opportunity before the conference championships so it’s real important to us.”

UH had a five-match winning streak snapped with a 7-5 loss at UCSB on Sunday and slipped three spots in this week’s Collegiate Water Polo Association rankings. Long Beach State in the only team in the conference without a league loss and have two more matches next week while UH prepares for the conference tournament.

UH was ranked fourth for much of the season and an at-large berth into the NCAA championships might still be within reach. But Cole would rather not leave UH’s NCAA fate up to a committee.

“I think there are a few teams in the mix, definitely would need a win on Saturday to have a shot at it,” Cole said. “If we get to the final of the Big West (tournament) I think we’d have a good chance, but you never know and you don’t want to leave it to chance.”

UH leads the Big West with 10.17 goals per game and feature two of the league’s top three scorers in freshmen Irene Gonzalez (68) and Femke Aan (55). Junior center Nikki-Marie Bell is tied for seventh with 41.

Long Beach State is led by sophomore Virginia Smith’s 40 goals and Cole said the Wahine focused this week’s preparation on tightening their defense coming off of the loss at UCSB.

“Definitely just want get better every day at our defense and our man-down defense,” Cole said. “We’re not doing anything drastic and just want to get better.”