Tonight could be the last time Kanoe Kamana'o plays volleyball in the Stan Sheriff Center.

That shoves the significance of the Western Athletic Conference showdown between 14th-ranked Hawai'i and 20th-ranked New Mexico State into the shadows, doesn't it? Senior Night, which will honor Sarah Mason, Cayley Thurlby and Kamana'o, has rarely been so bittersweet.

It's hard to imagine Rainbow Wahine volleyball without Kamana'o. She has been the starting setter all but two matches the past four years. She has been brilliant for all but about 20 seconds.

That might not even include her three All-America honors, national freshman of the year plaque, two WAC Player of the Year trophies and academic awards. Or even her magical ability to transform a terrible pass into a routine Rainbow kill and make absolutely everyone around her a whole bunch better.

"She is one of the most amazing people I've ever met," says associate coach Kari Ambrozich, a former UH setter. "Very even-keeled and sensible. ... She's loving, cares about every person on the team and tries her hardest in school and on the court, in everything she does.

"She is an unbelievable person, such a good girl. If I have a daughter, I hope she takes after her. Kanoe is so humble. She could have a little arrogance, but she doesn't have an ounce."

Kamana'o is all about volleyball. She will tell you point blank that she has never contemplated her life without volleyball in it, and won't until her tiny — by volleyball standards — body (5 feet 7, 135 pounds) gives out. It is her passion and priority, with family and friends basically all that's left on the list.

"I remember when I was playing and Kanoe was a ball girl not only at the games, but she would come in to almost all of our practices and just shag balls," recalls former UH All-American Robyn Ah Mow-Santos, the starting setter for the U.S. at the past two Olympics.

"It's amazing that one kid would just want to stay in the gym for three hours every day, and just hang around and shag balls. You could tell that this girl loved volleyball."

"I just love the position I play," Kamana'o said. "Being a setter, you have control over a lot of things. That's something I like to do — take charge of the situation. When times are rough or when we're put in tough situations, it's very challenging to me to help the team get out of the hole we're in. It's also fun."

She might have been UH coach Dave Shoji's simplest elite recruit. It would be almost impossible to find anyone closer to her family or Hawai'i. And, while other schools saw exceptional gifts in the 2001 state high school player of the year out of 'Iolani, you needed to be here to sense all that was possible.

Mainland schools wanted Kamana'o to play libero, where they had seen her for two summers with the junior national team. In Hawai'i, Shoji had seen the wondrous hands and sweet touch only another setter can truly appreciate, and no one can teach.

That, together with her astonishing quickness, deceptive hops and innate sense for the game, gave him a setter for the ages.

"Once in a decade," is Shoji's summation. Again, he is not talking only about athletic talent.

"She's one of those kids who never caused a problem," the coach said. "She's reliable, responsible, shows up, works hard. Academically, she's a very, very good student. If I had 12 of those kind of players then my job would be really easy. She has never had a discipline problem, never once spoken a cross word, never once shown an attitude."

With Kamana'o, what you see is all she's got, all the time. She streaks to salvage shanked passes, makes ridiculously difficult digs look ridiculously easy and forms technically perfect blocks to stuff hitters 6 inches taller.

She has done it remarkably well for 435 games over the course of four seasons, with zero ego and a relentlessness hidden only by her gentle personality. Former teammate Maja Gustin used to say there was something special inside Kamana'o "you cannot see but you can feel."

On the court, Ambrozich characterizes her as "ultra-competitive" and "very, very, very composed ... can I use another very?" New Mexico State coach Mike Jordan saw it the last time the teams played, in front of a raucous Las Cruces crowd.

"Our diehard fans who sit behind the Hawai'i bench said that even when things were at their worst for Hawai'i, Kanoe was a rock," Jordan recalled. "Leading, looking confident in the huddle, not panicked or frustrated, just trying to keep things together."

Jordan insists he hasn't seen a setter as good as Kamana'o since Misty May, who went from an NCAA championship to Olympic gold on the beach. He believes Kamana'o's set location is probably better than May's and, like Shoji, is blown away by her ability to transform so many poor passes into Hawai'i points.

The NMSU coach estimates Kamana'o's hitters get as much as 25 percent more scoring opportunities a game. Shoji figures her true worth might not be realized until she is gone.

"You may see the difference next year," Shoji said. "Taking balls 15 feet off the net, running to the ball and having to square your shoulders up and setting balls pretty consistently 3 or 4 feet off the net right on the sideline is very, very difficult. She makes it look so easy people don't understand that it can be any different."

Kamana'o has made her magic appear routine. She broke the career assist record as a junior. Maybe more compelling are her assist-per-game averages. All four are among the top six in the history of a program that has won four national championships and been home to seven All-America setters.

Her numbers have hardly blinked through four distinct seasons, from setting All-America hitters Kim Willoughby and Lily Kahumoku to six new starters and this year's season-ending-injury-a-month squad. It has always been between 13.62 and 13.85 and she has never been out of the top 12 nationally — sixth this year and last.

While her blocking and digging numbers are not among the national leaders, she has been the only player in the country the past two seasons with the trifecta game averages of 13 1/2 assists, 2 1/2 digs and one block. Kamana'o, once referred to as "a little peanut" by an opposing coach, finished fifth in WAC blocking as a sophomore, surrounded by nine middle hitters.

"She is really under-rated as a blocker," Shoji said. "Middles always benefited by blocking next to her. She is really good at setting the block and if teams come after her she is more than up to the task. She rarely gets abused as far as hitters going over or off her. If they attack her, she'll make them pay."

Kamana'o's exceptional gifts were obvious early. Days after she arrived at Manoa, Kahumoku was describing her as "Ah Mow-esque." Both grew up here, are under-sized for the college and international game, but so talented they have risen to the highest levels of their respective games. Not coincidentally, both make the game and position appear effortless, which is dramatically different from reality.

Kamana'o, who traveled with the national team the summer of 2005, wants to pursue a future professionally, and/or with the Olympic program. Ah Mow-Santos adamantly supports her choice.

"She definitely has the potential," said Ah Mow, now in Japan setting the U.S. at the World Championships. "How far she wants to go is all up to her. We are the same in that we both are short, we both had hops and could block and we had the sweet hands for setting. And, we both have a lot of love for the game.

"Oh, and she seemed like she was shy when she was younger, but she talks a whole lot more than I did when I was in college."

Kamana'o's next step started before the season, when she promised herself she would peek at opposing middle blockers before every set. It sounds simple but is outrageously hard, particularly if passes are not perfect.

Few setters master it, but she knows her future is now, and she is intent on accomplishing her ultimate goal.

"The biggest challenge for me would be trying to run a perfect offense," Kamana'o says with a serious face.

Is that even possible?

"That," Kamana'o says, starting to smile, "is why it's the biggest challenge. I'm trying to isolate my hitters 1-on-1 (an entire match). That would be realistic. It's something I've been trying to work on the past two years. I haven't really perfected it yet. It's something I'd like to keep working on."

And she will, for the final month of her college career and beyond. Kamana'o hopes her best Rainbow Wahine memory is yet to come.

"Definitely the best memory would be to win a national championship," Kamana'o says. "Our WAC winning streak ended when we lost one match to New Mexico State. It would be awesome to win the WAC Tournament again and then go one game at a time and start working our way up to a national championship."

That challenge sincerely starts tonight, with a bittersweet goodbye in Manoa.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.