Rainbow Forecast: Hawaii women’s volleyball opens up; soccer hosts 3

Welcome back to the follow-up edition to last week’s inaugural Rainbow Forecast. Here, we’ll lay out what’s to come in UH sports through the weekend.

Soccer and football opened things up last week — soccer losing 3-0 to No. 5 USC and football earning a thrilling 45-38 win over Arizona — and this week women’s volleyball joins the bunch with the Hawaiian Airlines Rainbow Wahine Classic (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). Robyn Ah Mow begins her third season as head coach with a team that’s received the biggest makeover of her tenure.

Soccer is back in action with three games this week (Monday, Thursday, Saturday) at the UH Lower Campus spread across two tournaments, the Outrigger Soccer Kickoff and Rainbow Wahine Soccer Invitational.

The UH football team gets to bask in its Week Zero success and exposure for a little while longer, as the Warriors do not play their next game until Sept. 7 vs. Oregon State.

MONDAY
Soccer: San Francisco (0-1) at Hawaii (0-1), 3:30 p.m., UH Lower Campus field
Not too surprisingly, an elite program like USC took it right at a pretty young Rainbow Wahine squad in the season opener last Thursday. The Trojans went on to beat USF 2-0 and claim the three-team tournament title. Meanwhile, USF of the West Coast Conference is still here.

UH nearly got its first goal of the season with about five minutes to play against USC and the game already decided, but McKenzie Moore hit her penalty kick off a post. Will the Wahine find the net today?

It will be interesting to see the condition of the practice field coming off a couple of games, plus three teams’ training sessions there in between.

About 200 people took in the opener. Now that school’s started, maybe some students will make their way down to the field.

THURSDAY
Soccer: Nevada (1-1) at Hawaii, 3:30 p.m., UH Lower Campus field
UH’s next tournament begins against a Mountain West team. The Wolf Pack are coming off a solid result, a 2-1 win at Pacific.

FRIDAY
Women’s volleyball: San Diego (0-0) at Hawaii (0-0), 7 p.m., Stan Sheriff Center
As you might recall, the Hawaiian Airlines Rainbow Wahine Classic was canceled last year due to the threat of Hurricane Lane. That deprived the Rainbow Wahine matches against Gonzaga and UCLA, although Kansas State hung around and UH got in two matches against the Wildcats, salvaging something out of the weekend despite two losses.

UH went on to go 18-9 for the season (14-2 Big West), finishing behind Cal Poly for the second straight year but earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament, where it went one-and-done in consecutive seasons.

The USD Toreros went 18-13 last year, including 13-5 in the West Coast Conference.

Robyn Ah Mow is 0-2 in season openers (K-State, three sets; Marquette, five sets). UH has lost three straight in openers going back to Dave Shoji’s final year (No. 4 Wisconsin, four sets).

UH begins the season unranked for the second straight year.

SATURDAY
Soccer: Sacramento State (1-1) at Hawaii, 3:30 p.m., UH Lower Campus field
UH faces a Big Sky squad that has already played two Big West foes. The Hornets lost 3-1 at UC Davis but then came home and beat Cal Poly 3-1. Could be goals aplenty either way when they meet the Wahine.

Women’s volleyball: St. John’s at Hawaii, 7 p.m., Stan Sheriff Center
The Red Storm from New York will be coming off a stiff opening test against Washington in this tournament. The Big East team was 23-12 (12-6 conference) with a one-and-done appearance in the NIVC consolation tournament last postseason.

SUNDAY
Women’s volleyball: Washington at Hawaii, 5 p.m., Stan Sheriff Center
The Huskies open this season ranked No. 13 in the AVCA poll coming off a 20-13 season (10-10 Pac-12) in which they made the NCAA sweet 16, losing in straight sets there to Penn State.

Washington is projected to finish fourth in the always-competitive Pac-12, behind Stanford, USC and Oregon.

This one could be a real tester for a very new Wahine squad still feeling out roles together.