This Week in Vulcan Women's Basketball
Record: 0-2 (0-2 PWC)

Vulcans Head to Oahu for Double Dip with Silverswords
Saturday, Jan. 30 vs. Chaminade (0-0), 2 pm, McCabe Gymnasium
Sunday, Jan. 31 vs. Chaminade, Noon, McCabe Gymnasium

Back to Action, Vulcans Square Off (twice) against Chaminade: Two weeks after opening the 2021 season at home against No. 3 nationally ranked Hawaii Pacific, the Vulcans will play their first Pacific West Conference road games of the year at Chaminade, with a Saturday (2 pm) and Sunday (noon) twinbill.

Vulcans on Video: No fans are allowed inside McCabe Gymnasium, but you can watch the live stream video. Go to https://hiloathletics.com/sports/womens-basketball/schedule for the link.

Swimming with the Sharks: UH Hilo opened its season two weekends ago (Jan. 16-17) at home versus Hawaii Pacific. The west region's top team shut down the Vulcans defensively the first day for a 69-46 win. But UH Hilo had HPU on the ropes on Sunday, leading for most of the first quarter and then again late in the third (50-47). The Sharks pulled away in the fourth quarter as the Vulcans succombed to foul trouble and the relentless Sharks. Senior Kim Schmelz led UHH on Sunday with 27 points and Mandi Kawaha paced the Vulcans on Saturday with 15.

Words from the Weekend: Kim Schmelz's 27 points was the most for her since the 2016-17 season when she put up 29 points against Academy of Art. She now has 908 career points, third best on UHH's all-time list...5-9 junior Bree Olson made her Vulcan debut with eight points and five rebounds on Saturday, followed up with an impressive 17 points and four boards on Sunday. Olson sat out the 2019-20 season with the injury after transferring to UHH from Pima CC (Ariz.)...Senior Malia Lee had a career-best 11 rebounds on Sunday, five of them on the offensive end of the court. After two games, she leads the Vulcans in rebounds with 7.5 per game.

Veteran Vulcans: Head coach David Kaneshiro, entering his 11^th season, has six letterwinners and five returning starters to send out to the floor. That includes Super Senior Kim Schmelz, who enters into her fifth year in a Vulcan uniform. She played in just two games in 2017-18 (medical redshirt) and missed all of 2018-19. She was an honorable mention All-PacWest selection in 2016-17, averaging 14.6 points a game. She ranks third on the Vulcan all-time scoring list…Fellow senior Sara Shimizu has started 65 games in her UHH career and ranks sixth on the Vulcan career three-pointers made list with 74...Senior, Malia Lee has played in 69 games over three seasons, and Jenna Waki started 23 contests in 2019-20 as a true freshman. Junior point guard Mandi Kawaha has the keys to the car, having averaged close to 10 points a game the past two seasons, while leading the team in assists and steals. Sophomore guard Mikayla Tablit returns (eight starts last year) as does redshirt junior Bree Olson (5-11 forward, Pima CC). Newcomers looking to contribute include Mindy Kawaha (Hilo HS), Noelle Sua-Godinet (Kamehameha-Kapalama), Erica Ingram (El Dorado Hills, Calif.), Kenedi Walters (Cabrillo College), Sierra Cavaletto (Santa Barbara CC) and Kayla Revelo (Vallejo, Calif.).
 
Coach Kaneshiro on Opening Against the Sharks: "I liked the effort and toughness that we showed against HPU.  I thought from a conditioning standpoint we held up fairly well in the doubleheader.  So that was good to see.  I thought we had some good defensive possessions over the weekend and had better offensive execution on Sunday so it was good to see that improvement." 
 
Pandemic Puzzle: The Vulcans (UH Hilo), Sharks (Hawaii Pacific) and Silverswords (Chaminade) will see a lot of each other this winter. The Pacific West Conference is playing pod-only schedules during the regular season, meaning that the Hawai`i teams will square off a total of 12 times each against each other---same for the schools in the northern California and the southern California portion of the conference. Teams will also play each other on back-to-back days in the same gym, to cut down on travel and exposure. Postseason play is still a possibility, COVID-19 permitting. But no teams in the CCAA are playing basketball this winter, and only three in the GNAC are competing (Seattle Pacific, Saint Martin's and Northwest Nazarene). The GNAC schools are also playing a number of non-conference games against local NAIA and Division III teams.

Coach K on Having Two Weeks to Prepare for Silverswords: "Over the last couple of weeks we've been mainly focusing on improving our execution, not relative to a particular opponent.  Since Chaminade hasn't played a game yet it's been difficult to prepare a scouting report.  So we've been mainly focusing on ourselves."

Chaminade Clippings: These two games at the end of January will be the season openers for Chaminade, who had their scheduled games last week against Hawaii Pacific postponed. The Silveswords are anxious to see where they are at without all-time leading scorer Destiny Castro, who graduated last spring. Castro left the program with 23 school records, leaving the Silverswords much to replace. The 'Swords also lost two other starters to graduation, and will be leaning on a very good recruiting class to jump start its season. 

Series Snapshot: The Vulcans won both games against the Silverswords in 2019-20, but Chaminade won both contests in 2018-19. UH Hilo leads the all-time series, 24-9.
 
Coach Kaneshiro on Chaminade: "I know that they have good returning players who have played well against us in the past.  And I know that they added some talented recruits.  We'll need to play with a high level of intensity and toughness.  And hopefully the last two weeks of practice will lead to improved execution on both ends of the floor."
 
Around the Loop: While HPU and Chaminade will have to reschedule their postponed games from last weekend, the PacWest pods in NorCal and SoCal got their seasons underway. Fresno Pacific won a pair of games over Dominican to begin 2-0, as did Azusa Pacific over Biola. In the D2SIDA national poll, Hawaii Pacific is No. 3 and APU checks in at No. 19. Those two are the top two teams in the west region poll, followed by Concordia, Point Loma, Seattle Pacific and Saint Martin's. 

Last Year: The Vulcans finished 10-16 overall and 9-13 in the Pacific West Conference, good for seventh place. After an 1-8 start which included a brutal non-conference schedule, UH Hilo went 9-9 over the back half of their schedule, missing a PacWest tournament berth by just one spot.

The Coach: Vulcan head coach David Kaneshiro is in his 11th season leading the Vulcan program, one of only two Vulcan head coaches in program history. He previously spent four years as an assistant coach with the men's team at UHH, and has been the women's head coach at Blackburn and Webster. He also was an assistant at Stanislaus State.