Azusa Pacific came in with a much better volleyball record, but the University of Hawaii at Hilo was the one that looked like a powerhouse on Saturday. ADVERTISING Azusa Pacific came in with a much better volleyball record, but the
Azusa Pacific came in with a much better volleyball record, but the University of Hawaii at Hilo was the one that looked like a powerhouse on Saturday.
Well, maybe powerhouse is stretching it. The Vulcans were more efficient, and swept the Cougars 25-22, 25-19, 25-21 in a Pacific West Conference match at UHH Gym.
Senior outside hitter Callie Aberle (13 kills, .262 hitting clip on 42 swings) and sophomore hitter Marley Strand-Nicolaisen (11 kills, .250 on 28 attacks) were a nice one-two punch for UHH (5-10, 4-8 PacWest), which hit .226 and snapped a five-match losing skid.
APU (11-9, 7-4) looked desperately like a team in need of a refresher hitting course. The visitors had a .072 hitting percentage and made far more hitting errors than UHH, 28-12. It also didn’t help that the Cougars were outblocked, 11-0; Kyndra Trevino-Scott led the way with eight roofs.
No one did much for the Cougars, unless negative stats should be considered. Alicia Utke took a team-high 30 swings, had five kills, committed nine errors and posted a negative .133 hitting clip.
UHH coach Tino Reyes is a realist, and he’s heavy on instruction, always offering technical advice when one of his players commits a fundamentally unsound play.
“I don’t know if we played great. We played within ourselves and minimized mistakes,” he said. “Hopefully, it was a good lesson for us. Most of the time the team that commits the less unforced errors wins.
“We talk about execution and some of them are so ingrained and unless you’re mindful it’s hard to develop into a systematically better volleyball team.”
UHH went in the opposite direction from everyone else on Saturday in regard to Hurricane Ana: the Vulcans hosted a volleyball match while pretty much all of the state’s sporting events were canceled.
The afternoon affair against APU played out like a typical rainy Hilo day, with frequent showers and dark, ominous clouds. The weather wasn’t completely uninviting or threatening.
UHH’s search
On Thursday, Reyes remarked that his team hasn’t “developed the killer instinct yet” after a five-set loss to Cal Baptist, the fourth consecutive defeat, with three going the distance.
That’s largely due to the fact that UHH doesn’t have a big-time hammer like Hillary Hurley, who in 2011 led all of Division II with 6.49 kills per set.
No surprise, that was the last year the Vuls reached the postseason. Since then they haven’t had a winning season.
“I don’t know if you can have that killer instinct after one or two matches. It has to develop over time,” Reyes said. “Maybe somebody on our team has it, and we can find it in the next couple of matches.”
Hurley was recruited by former UHH coach Bruce Atkinson, now at the University of Winthrop in South Carolina.
Hurley was the gift who kept on giving. She also played basketball (her second sport) and as a senior pulled a double-double with an All-PacWest first-team selection for both sports.
The 6-foot-2 outside hitter and forward was the greatest two-sport star in UHH school history. She was also a conference player of the year in both sports — an unmatched achievement.
Neither program has been able to recruit a gem like her. In fact, neither program has produced a PacWest conference of the year since Hurley.
She was also on UHH’s last conference championship team, under Atkinson, in 2009; the women’s basketball squad has never won a conference title.
Diamond in the rough
There may never be another two-sport star at UHH like Hurley. But that doesn’t mean, Reyes can’t find a diamond in the rough, and through his constant instruction polish someone into something special.
Reyes points to Strand-Nicolaisen as a player who has that potential, provided she puts in the hard work. The lanky 6-foot hitter brings to mind 2003 St. Joseph graduate Sarah Mason.
The 6-3 Mason was a bean pole when she signed to play ball at the University of Oregon. She later transferred to the University of Hawaii, where she was a completely different player because she packed on so much muscle from rigorous weight lifting.
“I’d like to think that people can expand,” Reyes said. “Marley has enough talent. But it takes a certain mindset. It’s not just the work you do, but what you do outside of the gym.”
It may be difficult to recruit a gem like Hurley, provided the athletic department’s limited resources. But at least UHH has the next best thing: a coach who won’t stop trying to develop the next Hurley.
Only game in town
The Vulcans had the weekend to themselves because the Big Island Interscholastic Federation canceled all sporting events, including the best volleyball battle in league history between a pair of 13-0 unbeatens Friday.
For the first time, a defending Division II state champion (Konawaena) was going to face the BIIF’s most talented team (Kamehameha) in the league’s history.
No other school has had three USA Volleyball A-1 players like Kamehameha. And unfortunately, outside hitter Kaiulani Ahuna and libero Zoe Leonard are seniors. The other is Kamalu Makekau-Whittaker, a junior setter.
Last season, the showdown at Kamehameha’s Koaia gym went down as a classic. The Warriors won 25-17, 21-25, 29-27, 25-27, 15-13 behind Ahuna’s 35 kills. Kona countered with Chanelle Molina’s 19 kills and McKenna Ventura’s 12 kills.
The rematch was supposed to be one for the history books. Instead, Hurricane Ana wiped that out. Next year, the Warriors, with eight seniors, won’t look the same.
