The tale of Isabella Aguinaldo is a story to warm your heart and inspire any BIIF freshman who’s a rookie in their sport and wants to snag a collegiate scholarship.
The 5-foot-3 libero for the Christian Liberty Academy volleyball team landed an athletic/academic scholarship to San Diego Christian College, an NAIA school, where former UH-Hilo coach Gene Krieger is the coach and 2015 Kamehameha graduate Jeyci Kaili is an assistant and former Hawk.
Krieger is in his second season and Kaili in her third. The Hawks, who have five players from Hawaii on their roster, are currently 12-7 and went 11-10 in 2020. After UHH, Krieger was a Concordia assistant and the head coach for beach volleyball for the 2019 season.
Aguinaldo was a late bloomer to volleyball. She attended CLA as a kindergartener but didn’t get serious about the sport until she was a freshman. She played as a freshman and sophomore for the Canefire, COVID-19 canceled her junior year, but she’s not playing her senior season at CLA to focus on club ball for Pilipaa.
Naturally, she was not confident and really nervous when she first played as a freshman. But she had two things going for her: incredible determination and an extremely supportive father, Gilbert Aguinaldo, who even built a gym for her.
“Serve-receive was very frustrating for me,” she said. “If I made a bad pass, I learned to shake it off and be ready for the next one. I was really nervous, but I wanted to get better. I saw how the game is played and wanted to be better.”
During the last game of her freshman season, Aguinaldo closely watched senior libero Kyleigh Corpuz, whose sister Rhylee Corpuz is playing ball at Pacific University, telling Kyleigh she wanted to be a libero. She later had a conversation with her parents, Gilbert and Tracey Aguinaldo, and signed up for a volleyball clinic.
It was run by A Mother’s Prayer, coached by Tai Manu Olevao and Poli Olevao Kahapea. Aguinaldo trained with AMP for close to two years and was introduced to Tai’s club coach Luis Ramirez, who’s based on Oahu.
She would fly over to Oahu once a month, then the next summer it increased to two times a month. Dad footed the bills, and Aguinaldo soon started to see progress.
One day, father and daughter ran into Napua Canda, the Waiakea boys coach and Pilipaa girls coach. In the beginning of her junior year, Aguinaldo found Canda to be a comfortable coach with an easy-going demeanor that helped her when she trained with Pilipaa five days a week.
“I love playing for him. He knows a lot about volleyball. Her personalizes our training and caters to each girl,” Aguinaldo said. “It’s a very personal connection. He instilled in us to put time in the gym if you want to get somewhere.
“I felt better and was definitely more confident. I was solidifying and perfecting my technique. At this point, I knew he was my forever club coach. I liked what I saw and how he coached.”
Aguinaldo is very similar to Kaili, who chose the Hawks because of the school’s Christian values, small college enrollment (450 students) and personal relationships with professors. Aguinaldo lives in Pahoa, and the Canefire fit all three of those requirements.
“My parents wanted me to go to a small school, and it had to be Christian,” said Aguinaldo, who plans to major in biology and wants to become a veterinarian technician. “I also liked the personal relationships with the teachers. When they would see you, they would ask, ‘How’s your grandma?’
“I took a visit this month to San Diego and loved it. It’s so nice. It’s like Christian Liberty. The Dean is the nicest person. The campus looks brand new. Coach Gene is very patient. If somebody makes a mistake, he’ll pause practice and ask the player why they did that? Then he’ll reconstruct it so they can do it better.”
Aguinaldo’s dad, who owns Big Island Electrical Services and Pacific Rim Construction, built not one but two gyms. The current one is called HI Performance Volleyball gym, which is located in the Shipman Industrial park.
He persuaded Canda to form a girls team, which still has the six original members, the future Hawk proudly notes. During the summer, Pilipaa played in the Aloha Volleyball Festival in Arizona and the Aloha Summer Classic on Oahu, where Pilipaa captured first place in the 18 division.
Eventually, Krieger found out about Aguinaldo and started talking to her dad, who also served as her recruiting coordinator.
“My dad, I can’t say thank you enough,” she said. “He owns two business, and he’s really busy but makes time for me. He puts in so much extra work that he doesn’t need to. But he wants to see me prosper.”
Aguinaldo has a love for animals. The family has three cats and had two dogs that passed away this past year, one from a rare cancer on its face. The family doesn’t own any horse, but that’s her favorite.
“I always take care of hurt or stray animals, even birds that are attacked by our three cats,” she said. “We had to put our dog down because she was so uncomfortable. I want to help other animals in the same situation.”
Gilbert and Tracey, who’s a secretary for the businesses, have one other son, Rylan, who’s in the eighth grade. Like his sister, he’s found his passion, robotics.
Asked for her hobby, Aguinaldo said that she’s a homebody, but when there’s free time around, she does what make her most happy.
“I enjoy playing grass volleyball and playing in tourneys with my friends and beach volleyball with my teammates. I definitely like riding horses and spending time with my family,” said Aguinaldo, who then offered the advice that she’s followed all her life. “It doesn’t matter what age you start. What matters is the time you put in to get better and the drive to get better.”
