Every season opens with expectations hanging in the air, right there in the gym, mixed in with sounds of sneakers squeaking on the hardwood.
Every season opens with expectations hanging in the air, right there in the gym, mixed in with sounds of sneakers squeaking on the hardwood.
In the gym at UH Hilo, sixth-year coach David Kaneshiro tries to find the best mix of skills and understanding on his women’s team. They have struggled to keep their heads up with a 55-68 record in his time with the Vulcans, who have proven to be more than capable, just not often enough.
“We know we can play,” said point guard Alexa Jacobs, a 5-foot-8 junior from Glendale, Arizona, “we just need to get people healthy.”
Jacobs made the point about last year when the Vulcans were in their worst stretch of the season, losing six of seven games in January and early February, most of them close down to the final minute. The game they won in that down time came against Cal Baptist, the Pacific West Conference champion and national runner-up after falling in the title game in Sioux Falls, S.D., to California (Pa.).
And yes, trivia buffs, that was the second loss of the season to the Vulcans, which is also the nickname for California of Pennsylvania, winners of their second national title.
This year, the sensible outlook for the UH Hilo women’s team might be to suspend expectations.
This is a team that seems prepared to expect the unexpected.
The school is guarded about releasing injury information, but it’s clear that Jacobs, the returning point guard and arguably the most significant player on the team for that reason, is out for an extended time after tearing her Achilles tendon for the second time earlier this month. Other injuries are keeping others out of the lineup, but there’s a sense that they can absorb the temporary damage and maintain a combative posture.
Some of them know all to well how to separate sports reality from the much more serious realities of daily life on a college campus.
Piliaoha Kailiawa, a 6-foot post player from Pahala, spent the first two years of her collegiate career (along with teammate Asia Smith, currently nursing an injury), at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Or., where a month ago a gunman walked on campus, went to Building C and opened fire in a classroom, taking the lives of an assistant professor and eight students.
Kailiawa had trouble believing the truth behind the phone calls she started getting from friends at the Southern Oregon school. She was sleeping when her best friend texted her, but she rolled over and went back to sleep. Then the phone calls started coming.
“I really couldn’t believe it,” Kailiawa said, “I knew some of those people, others I knew their names. I went by that building, literally, every day I was in school there. I had classes in that building, probably in the same room.
“It’s still a shock, trying to make sense of it,” she said. “One of my best friends (from Umpqua) called me the other day and it all came back, like it just happened.
“All you can do,” she said, “is be grateful for what you have, for every day, for all your opportunities.”
Campus shootings are a national blight on the American character, and they seem capable of happening anywhere. Eight days after Roseburg, a one person was shot to death and three injured in a shooting at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where an argument escalated into name calling and ended with a gun.
Jacobs knew one of the victims in that shooting.
“I was so upset for the obvious reasons,” Jacobs said, “but also because I didn’t know what to do or say. What do you say? How can you help?
“I just know I don’t want to live my life in fear,” she said. “I want to chase dreams and do things and I plan to do still, no matter what.”
That type of optimism has Jacobs rehabilitating her Achilles injury, getting ready to play this season — or part of it, anyway — on a right leg with no Achilles, then she plans to have it surgically repaired at the end of the season.
“We have a good group,” said junior Sydney Mercer from Prosser, Wa., “we can see it will take some time to get everything in order, but we know we can play.”
You will be frustrated trying to figure out how the season will go with so many moving parts, but these women know all too well how things can happen unexpectedly.
And that’s what the season will likely be all about for the UHH women — expect the unexpected and don’t look past these Vulcans.
You can ask Cal Baptist about that last point.
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