HONOLULU — When the Hawaii softball team faces Mississippi in the Bank of Hawaii Paradise Classic this weekend, veteran coach Bob Coolen will get a too-close-for-comfort reminder of the new reality of college athletics.

The Rebels of the SEC, one of four visiting teams in the season-opening tournament at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium, feature a heavily retooled roster that includes one Brianna Lopez, the former All-Big West ace for the Rainbow Wahine.

What You Need To Know

  • The Hawaii softball team opens in 2024 season on Thursday night against Nevada in the Bank of Hawaii Paradise Classic at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium

  • UH was picked to finish sixth in the preseason Big West Conference coaches poll, with fifth-year senior second baseman Maya Nakamura named to the preseason all-conference team

  • Bob Coolen, who enters his 33rd year as head coach, expressed frustration about having to reconstruct his pitching staff after ace Brianna Lopez entered the transfer portal in the offseason and landed at Ole Miss of the SEC

  • UH plays Ole Miss in the five-team tournament on Saturday and Sunday

Coolen’s biggest question mark heading into the season, for which UH is picked to finish sixth in the Big West, is the mound. And he couldn’t contain his frustration this week about why that is the case.

The coach said that Lopez called him in the offseason to tell him she was leaving the program to find one closer to home in Riverside, Calif. But Lopez ended up across the country at a Power Five program in Ole Miss.

“It hurts, because she told me one thing and did another, and that’s not really something that you forget as a coach,” Coolen said in an interview with local media Tuesday.

The 33rd-year UH head coach, who will coach this season and 2025 to cap his career, said recent changes in NCAA athletics have adversely impacted his program, with Lopez as a prime example.

“I’m going to be honest with you, the (NCAA transfer) portal is not something I favor. NILs (Name, Image and Likeness opportunities) are not something I favor because we don’t have them,” Coolen said. “We are not on an even-keel playing field.”

Former Rainbow Wahine ace Brianna Lopez, seen during the 2023 season. Lopez is back in the Islands with her new team, Ole Miss, for the Bank of Hawaii Paradise Classic at UH this weekend, and could face her former team. (Spectrum News/Brian McInnis)

UH is coming off a 30-23 season in 2023 in which it went 13-14 in Big West play for a tie for fifth place. The 2024 season will be the Big West’s last in which the regular-season champion receives the conference’s automatic NCAA Tournament berth; starting in 2025 that will be decided by a Big West tournament at Cal State Fullerton.

The Wahine return nearly all of their starting position players from last year, highlighted by All-BWC first-teamers Maya Nakamura (second base) and Izzy Martinez (catcher), and honorable mentions Xiao Gin (shortstop) and Haley Johnson (designated player).

Nakamura, a fifth-year senior and Roosevelt High alumna, thinks the team has better depth than in recent seasons as the “B” squad in practices have been frisky and pushed the penciled starters.

UH has not made the NCAA Tournament since 2013.

“I want to see us compete. I think in the previous years we’ve definitely underperformed,” said Nakamura, who hit a team-high .390 with a .545 on-base percentage and 35 runs scored in 2023. “I would like to see us finish at the top this year. We don’t have that tournament at the end of the season, so it’s either you make it or you don’t.”

She feels more confident in her chemistry with Gin in the middle infield going into their second year together. The two are not afraid to critique the other and debate the merits of different tactics, she said.

Martinez, who has been given the leeway by Coolen to call games herself, hit .343 with a .587 slugging percentage and a BWC-low four strikeouts for a lineup regular.

There are also veterans at the corners in Ka‘ena Keliinoi at third and Dallas Millwood at first, back from a season-ending injury. Mya’Liah Bethea, who filled in for Millwood at first, shifts back to a utility role.

“It’s been a give and take this year, a lot more feedback from the players,” Coolen said. “And I expected that when they’re all getting their master’s and being opinionated and maybe setting themselves up for later in life when they’re coaching. You never know.”

Lopez was a second-team pitcher in 2023 after making the first team as a true freshman in 2022. She had a 2.43 earned-run average and 16-12 record as a sophomore.

UH’s new No. 1 in the circle is sophomore Key-annah Campbell-Pua, who made the BWC All-Freshman team last season with a 3.06 ERA and nine complete games, including a no-hitter.

She’s backed up by Long Beach State transfer Addison Kostrencich, a redshirt junior who appeared in 10 total games for UH’s Big West rival over three seasons.

Chloe Borges is the No. 3 pitcher, Coolen said, and will be a part-time centerfielder, with Australian Millie Fidge the No. 4.

"We have all the bases covered, and I’m excited about the potential of that starting group, with a few additions," Coolen said. "It’s all going to be based on what happens on the mound."

UH opens with Nevada at 6 p.m. Thursday at RWSS. The Wolf Pack feature freshman Taryn Irimata, a former ace and state champion at Campbell High.

Games against Missouri-Kansas City (6 p.m. Friday) and BYU (3:30 p.m. Saturday) follow. UH will then play Ole Miss at 6 p.m. Saturday and again at noon Sunday in the last two games of the tournament.

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.