Hawaii Grown: College Athletics
Al Chase
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Fairfield and Siena have touch of Aloha
The Fairfield Stags women's team, with five Hawaii players on its roster, had won 20 consecutive matches since losing to Northwestern on Sept. 9 in the Waikiki Beach Marriott Volleyball Challenge.
The winning streak ended last Saturday when Siena College, with two starters from Hawaii, defeated the Stags in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference postseason tournament championship match 30-24, 30-25, 21-30, 15-30, 15-12 at Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
Kathi Kobayashi (Punahou '05), a sophomore defensive specialist, had 14 digs for the Saints, and Kaui Robello (Punahou '06), a freshman setter/defensive specialist had 12 digs and two kills. In the fifth game, Robello served four consecutive points to give Siena (22-12) a commanding lead.
For the Stags (23-7), juniors Lindsey Lee (St. Joseph '04) and Jazmin Pa'akaula (St. Joseph '04) posted double-doubles. Lee had 16 kills and 18 digs and Pa'akaula contributed 12 kills and 11 digs. Both were named to the all-tournament team.
Brandi Higa (Hawaii Baptist '05), a sophomore defensive specialist, had 10 digs for Fairfield.
Siena earns the MAAC's automatic berth into the NCAA tournament.
At Fairfield's awards banquet the next day, it was announced that Kiana Kauwe (Kamehameha '03) has been named to the MAAC All-Academic Team. This is the third time the senior libero has been so honored.
» Kathleen Yee (Moanalua '05), a sophomore for St. John's, has been named the Big East Conference Libero of the Year. Joining her on the all-conference first team was senior outside hitter Patti Hardimon (Moanalua '03).
Yee leads the team in digs with 455 and is third in service aces with 29. She is 83 digs shy of becoming the seventh Red Storm athlete to record 1,000 career digs.
As one of three team captains, Hardimon leads the squad with 344 kills, and is second on the team with 316 digs and 41 service aces. Hardimon has compiled 25 career double-doubles, 15 of them this season.
St. John's (30-2) won the Big East regular-season title with a 14-0 record, but was upset in the postseason tournament by Notre Dame in a semifinal-round match.
» Kevin Aoki just completed his 11th season as the head women's volleyball coach at Pacific Lutheran. The Iolani graduate has a career 179-106 record (.628). His teams won Northwest Conference championships in 1999 and 2004 and finished second this year.
The Lutes received an at-large berth into the NCAA Division III tournament, but were ousted by Redlands 28-30, 30-22, 26-30, 30-21, 16-14 in the first round.
» Phil Ibarra, of Ka'u, is the head women's volleyball coach at St. Martin's College. This is Ibarra's second season of trying to rebuild the Saints program and it has been a challenge. The Saints were 1-24 a year ago and 1-19 this season.
» Natalie Childs, a former varsity volleyball player for Molokai Christian Academy, was the women's volleyball team manager for the Pacific Union College Pioneers this year.
Honors for former Iolani star Pape
» Kyle Pape (Iolani '05) a 6-foot-2 sophomore guard at Colorado School of Mines, has been named to the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Preseason All-East Division Team. Pape, the RMAC freshman of the year in 2006-06, led the Orediggers in scoring last year with 14.2 points per game.