By NCAA mandate, University of Hawai'i soccer coach Pinsoom Tenzing hadn't been able to keep much of an eye on his team during its month-plus of voluntary summer workouts.

But, then, he hardly needed to. People were only too happy to tell him what they had witnessed.

Rare was the week that went by when folks — on campus or in the Manoa area — didn't make mention of how impressive had been the sight of 20 or more soccer players doing their morning three-mile run and weight training sessions with considerable enthusiasm.

There has been a sense of not only painstaking dedication to the season at hand but a refreshing harmony about them as the Rainbow Wahine have gone about preparing to defend their Western Athletic Conference championship. So much so that UH athletic director Jim Donovan pulled Tenzing aside one morning to say, "I've been watching your team and their esprit de corps is fantastic."

If the Rainbow Wahine have been resting — and their fall camp conditioning tests suggest they haven't — it sure wasn't on their laurels from a 15-5-2 season.

They have not only embraced the rigorous regimen of trainer DeJuan Hathaway but ratcheted up the peer pressure to excel. "I think everyone out here knows what we have to do to win," said Tehane Higa, All-WAC preseason defensive player of the year. "You have to work hard, you have to commit yourself and you have to dedicate yourself. For us it makes it easier if we all do it together."

For Higa, a captain, they are words to be backed up by action. After taking a moment to talk to a reporter near the end of practice the other day, she ran, unprompted, back on the field to finish her set of laps while teammates rested.

That, Tenzing said by way of an approving nod, is why this team has a chance to be special. "They don't need the external motivation," Tenzing said. "They don't need the coaches to push them. They are doing many of these things on their own. That's how cohesive they are."

Of all the marks former All-WAC player and scholar Jessica Domingo left at her alma mater, this may be her most telling legacy. By force of will she was largely responsible for the players taking it upon themselves to not only expect but demand excellence the past two seasons.

This year, with nine starters and 17 letter winners returning from a team that reached the NCAA Tournament, the level of expectation and competition has risen. And so has the early down payment in sweat heading into the Aug. 27 season opener with Long Beach State.

"Now that we've been the WAC champions, we are the targets," Higa said. "When you've been champions you want to stay there. You don't want somebody to take it back. You work harder."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.