At the conclusion of an NCAA sports calendar that started last fall and ended a week ago today when the baseball team won its last game of the season, it was obvious to everyone involved in the athletic department at the University of Hawaii at Hilo that one program stood out among all the others.
There are seven team sports at the school: soccer, basketball and baseball for men and softball, volleyball, basketball and soccer for women. They didn’t need to go to a second ballot to realize the softball team, in the second season under coach Peejay Brun, has become the school’s most successful program. In two years, this Division II school has become a softball school in terms of athletics identity.
If they had a winner’s stand at the school, Brun would be the coach standing on the top shelf where they hand out the gold medals.
Cristina Menjivar was a first team, all-conference selection, Bailey Gaspar was the conference’s leading hitter.
Gaspar was selected the school’s female athlete of the year last week at the school’s annual all-sports banquet, and on Friday, she was named Division II all-Region first-team designated player by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.
“I lucked out, there were some good players here,” Brun said, deflecting a celebratory opportunity, “I knew they had some potential but they also have been workers, and you never know that part until you get started.
“It hasn’t been what we want,” she said of the 32-17, 21-9 in Pacific West Conference season, “so I can’t say it was great, that’s still out there. But looking back, after losing six seniors, to come back and have a better record required a lot of bonding and that’s a pretty big deal, actually. They all bought in, they came together really well and that was a pretty great thing.”
It wasn’t a simple matter of luck.
Brun’s second-year squad won one more game overall and in conference play from there 2015 version, still finished just outside playoff consideration, but when you step back and take a look, the Vulcans are in the mix of postseason contenders at the top of the Pac West.
The top five — Azusa Pacific (25-5), Cal Baptist (24-8), Dixie State (24-8), Concordia (23-9) and UHH (21-9) — represent a level above the rest of the conference. After the Vulcans, Dominican (16-16), was next in line and all other teams had losing records.
For Brun and her teammates, the idea is to look ahead, not behind, yet it is only natural to reflect on what might have been. The Vulcans were 11-1 against other Hawaii schools, the only defeat having come against Hawaii-Pacific.
They were 2-2 against champion Azusa Pacific, which shows how close they were to the top, but they lost a 2-1, 10-inning game at Cal Baptist and a 7-6 game at Dixie State got away that could have made a difference. Had those gone the other way, the Vulcans would have been 24-6, in the playoffs.
“You can’t look back and wish and hope,” Brun said, “but our record against Azusa told us we were right there, so we can build on that.”
She will do it next season with all three pitchers returning, along with Menjivar and Gaspar, two of the conference’s best hitters, but after two seasons, her program has made the right kind of progress.
It would be a major step if she recruited a top pitcher, but that very seldom happens at the D-II level. Pitchers in softball are like a hot goalie in hockey, they function like the ace of the staff on a Major League Baseball team, except they get to play them every game. In softball, pitchers can just keep going and if you have one of the special ones, opponents can be defeated almost before the game starts.
That won’t happen, but with three returning, bolstered by experience and a winning tradition, the future looks promising.
“Honestly, we are about where I thought we would be,” Brun said. “I really kind of thought we might get to regionals this year, but we just missed out. The challenges we have are realistic; we aren’t too far away.”
Numbers don’t lie
2015-16 records for UH-Hilo’s seven teams:
Overall PacWest
Softball 32-17 21-9
Volleyball 11-12 9-11
Women’s hoops 10-15 10-10
Men’s hoops 9-15 9-11
Women’s soccer 5-9-3 4-9-0
Men’s soccer 4-12-2 3-8-2
Baseball 9-33 7-27
