My Profile: The 1987 NCAA Championship team

Back row (l to r): Melody Toth, trainer; Kepa Cummings, manager; Suzanne Eagye; Diana Jessie; Martina Cincerova; Dave Shoji, coach; Dean Nowack, associate coach; Jami Long; Alan Lau, statistician. Bottom row (l to r) Jaime Paet; Leeana Merriweather; Mahina Eleneki; Tita Ahuna; Karrie Trieschman;Teee Williams; and volunteer coach Michi. Not pictured: Redshirts Dede Dunstone, Toni Nishida and Mary Robins.

It was the little team that could.

It took four years of growth by Hawaii’s unheralded, lightly recruited Class of 1984, but Tita Ahuna, Suzanne Eagye, Mahina Eleneki and Diana Jessie finished their often-frustrating careers with an NCAA title.

The heartwarming end came on a cold December night in Indianapolis via a 15-10, 15-10, 9-15, 15-1 downing of Stanford. Although it was sophomore Teee Williams - named the National Player of the Year - who had a match-high 21 kills and junior Martina Cincerova - establishing herself as one of the program’s premier setters - the moment belonged to the senior poi-dog Gang of Four.

They had lost more matches in their freshman season (11) than the program had lost in the combined previous three years (5). The tradition was intimidating enough: This was a program that was the national runner-up in its first year of collegiate competition, one where - as the four were told by coach Dave Shoji when being recruited - every single player to wear a Wahine uniform had won at least one championship during her stay.

The expectations were exceptionally high, marked by the banners that watched like sentinels over the Klum Gym court. There was no forgetting the legacy that literally hung over them … three championships in five years.

The 1987 season started off on a mixed-plate note. Williams, a Prop 48 casualty who sat out her freshman year, was as good as advertised in the quick sweep of Cal. But it was tempered by the loss of sophomore Mary Robins, the PCAA Freshman of the Year, who crumpled during warmups with a season-ending ACL injury.

Hawaii won the PCAA title - the forerunner of the Big West - with a 17-1 mark, only losing at UC Santa Barbara in five. The only other loss came at rival Pacific … a defeat more than atoned for when the Wahine - hosting a regional for the first time - swept the Tigers on a steamy night in Klum.

The rest is history. And a memory not dimmed by 20 years.