On the field next to the much more prominent football team, the University of Hawai'i women's soccer team prepares for its season with many of the same expectations and obstacles.

After experiencing similar success to the Warriors last season — including advancing to an unprecedented postseason game — the Rainbow Wahine are eager to duplicate and hopefully surpass those achievements.

Hawai'i returns as Western Athletic Conference champion, featuring the Preseason WAC Defensive Player of the Year Tehane Higa, and Preseason Offensive Player of the Year Ambree Ako.

"We have been really working hard and just knowing that we are the WAC champs, we have to work 10 times harder to defend our title," said Higa, a senior captain. "We know everyone is going to be gunning for us so that motivates us to work even harder so we can keep our title."

The Rainbow Wahine open their season against Long Beach State and Denver in the Ohana Hotels and Resorts No Ka Oi Tournament at the Waipi'o Peninsula Soccer Stadium. Hawai'i plays Long Beach State Wednesday at 7 p.m. and Denver next Monday at 4 p.m.

"We want to continue doing what we did the last three years," Hawai'i coach Pinsoom Tenzing said. "Namely playing possession ball and always looking to improve the quality of passing. We want to try emphasize more and more about keeping the ball on the ground because it's so much easier to play the game that way, unless you're dealing with the last pass."

Hawai'i returns nine starters, but lost its "quarterback," midfielder Jessica Domingo, who completed her eligibility after three all-WAC seasons.

Tenzing is still "looking at different options," with three or four players in mind.

"I need to hurry them up into the process of owning the middle of the field," said Tenzing, who said it may be a learning process up until the WAC season.

The Rainbow Wahine won both the WAC's regular-season title and conference tournament, advancing to the NCAA Tournament for the first time.

"I think we can do better than last year," said senior forward and captain Taryn Fukuroku. "If we make it to the NCAAs, (we can) actually win a game. We are returning nine starters, and hopefully we can jell better. I think we can do really good.

"Everyone has higher expectations for this year. Because we won the WAC last year and we made it to the NCAAs, and we didn't get killed, we competed, so I think everyone knows we can compete at a higher level now and they don't just settle for winning the WAC."

Fukuroku and Ako helped make Hawai'i the WAC's top offensive unit last year, as it led the conference in shots, points, goals and assists. Each scored 12 goals to tie for second in the WAC.

"We were picked to be first ... I would rather be picked fifth and not have all this pressure on you," Higa said.

"Last season, we were picked fifth, and we had nothing to lose because everyone thought we sucked. And now it's like we're the ones to beat so we have to prove that to everyone, so it's a lot of pressure."

Last season, the Higa-led defense allowed a WAC-low 0.92 goals against average. Expect to see another season with the same type of frantic pressure defense the Rainbow Wahine have been playing the past few years.

"That will always be in the repertoire," Tenzing said. "It's just good for the team, where they are triggering this very fast-paced, group defense. They can't do it all the time, but when they do it, it looks good.

"I describe it as stealing (opponents') lungs and piercing their heart, meaning that we get them tired by doing that and we demoralize them."