By WES NAKAMA
By WES NAKAMA
Stephens Media Hawaii
HONOLULU — The Horseshoe. The Big House. The Rose Bowl.
The University of Hawaii will make its first appearances at those legendary college football venues in the next few years thanks to recent agreements with Ohio State, Michigan and UCLA, respectively.
UH announced last week it will visit Columbus, Ohio, on Sept. 12, 2015 for a first-ever game against the Buckeyes. Ohio Stadium, commonly known as “The Horseshoe,” is almost always filled to its capacity of 102,329.
To date, the largest crowd a UH team played in front of was 93,607 last year against Southern California at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
Two weeks after the Ohio State game, Hawaii will play at Wisconsin, in its 80,321-seat Camp Randall Stadium.
On Sept. 3, 2016, the Rainbow Warriors will step into 109,901-seat Michigan Stadium — college football’s largest venue commonly known as “The Big House.” Three weeks later, UH will play at Kansas for the first time.
On Sept. 9, 2017, UH will play UCLA at the historic Rose Bowl, capacity 91,136.
In 2018, the Rainbow Warriors will travel to Army on Sept. 15 and Brigham Young on Nov. 17. In 2020, UH will visit Arizona on Sept. 5; in 2021, it will play at Oregon State on Sept. 11 and in 2022, will return to Wisconsin on Sept. 17.
WAHINE STILL MAY HOST NCAA OPENING ROUNDS: Fortunately for the UH women’s volleyball team, last Friday’s
stunning five-set upset at the hands of Cal Santa Barbara does not eliminate the Rainbow Wahine from consideration to host an NCAA Tournament first-round match.
A relatively new NCAA “bracketing principle” stipulates that the top 16 seeded teams will be offered the opportunity to host first- and second-round matches. Seedings are done by an NCAA women’s volleyball committee and are based partly on Rating
Percentage Index (RPI). Hawaii is currently at No. 10 in RPI and is the only Big West Conference team in the Top 50, which means another loss would be costly.
But if the Rainbow Wahine win out as expected, a Top 16 RPI finish is likely, which should lead to a Top 16 seeding and successful bid to host NCAA matches at the Stan Sheriff Center on Dec. 5-6 or Dec. 6-7.
UH hosts its annual alumnae match Friday night.
SOCCER TEAM BACK ON THE ROAD: The UH women’s soccer team returns to action today with an 11 a.m. (HST) road game at Cal Davis.
The Rainbow Wahine (6-7 overall, 1-3 Big West) lost a 3-2 double-overtime heartbreaker at home Sunday when Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Elise Krieghoff scored in the 106th minute. The Mustangs led, 2-0, early in the second half, but then Tiana Fujimoto scored in the 54th minutes and then freshman Kama Pascua punched in the tying goal with just under 90 seconds remaining in regulation.
After playing Cal Davis, UH will head south for a Sunday game at Long Beach State, then return to Hawaii for a game vs. Cal Irvine on Oct. 24.
SOPHOMORE SENSATIONS: UH sophomore Amund Gismervik had a record-breaking debut meet last weekend at the Rainbow Warriors’ season-opening dual competition vs. Arizona State and Utah.
Gismervik’s platform score of 397.90 broke the previous school record of 388.40 set by Mats Wiktorsson in 2008 (the diving format changed in the 2005-2006 season). It also is an NCAA zone-qualifying score.
Gismervik, who is from Stavanger, Norway, placed 24th 10-meter platform event at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London.
In the women’s competition, Hawaii sophomore Aimee Harrison took first place in the 1-meter event with a zone-qualifying score of 286.30.