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Monday, September 4, 2000

By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Wahine Kim Willoughby (3) places a shot around the
block of Iowa 's Fabiana De Abreu last night

Bring on
the Bruins

The Wahine sweep Iowa
to face top-ranked UCLA
for tournament title

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By Pat Bigold
Star-Bulletin

True freshmen Kim Willoughby and Maja Gustin proved once again last night how vital they are to the University of Hawaii Wahine volleyball team's new starting lineup.

With only two Division I college games under their belts, they now have the chance to push the No. 5 Wahine to the top of the polls, or very close to it.

Hawaii will host No. 1 UCLA in the championship of the Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic at Stan Sheriff Center today at 5 p.m. and a win over the Bruins (3-1) could very well catapult the Wahine (2-0).

Hawaii dispatched unranked Iowa in straight sets, 15-3, 15-1, 15-7, rallying from a 7-3 deficit in the final game.

By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine, from left,
Kim Willoughby, Margret Vakasausau, Veronica
Lima and Jessica Sudduth celebrate last night's
three-game sweep against the Iowa Hawkeyes.

The Bruins struggled for a while against Texas A&M (No. 19 in the AVC/USA Today Coaches' Poll), but prevailed, 15-2, 10-15, 15-11, 15-8.

"They're (Hawaii) playing at home with a very respectable ranking they deserve and they have a lot of good players," said UCLA head coach Andy Banachowski. "They're going to be in the (national) title picture."

Hawaii is 29-26 in series matches against the Bruins and each team has won the Hawaiian Airlines event five times.

Banachowski is wary of what Willoughby and Gustin can do.

"Both their freshmen are very skilled, very impressive," he said.

Willoughby, who soon may have to register her crowd-pleasing hitting arm as a lethal weapon, crushed nine kills of the sensational variety against only one error while digging eight balls.

She tied sophomore Lily Kahumoku (no errors, hitting .563) and junior Veronica Lima (two errors, .438) in kills.

Middle hitter Gustin (six kills, four block assists), a former Slovenian national team player, has been a monster at the net.

But she showed last night that she is also a very effective server.

Gustin had four service aces, each on a line that cleared the top of the net with hardly any space to spare. Three of the aces came in the first game.

"Her serve is very hard to handle," said Wahine head coach Dave Shoji. "It's coming from a long way, and it seems to gather speed when it gets to the player. So, I think I'll keep her in there.

"We've got better defensive players, so she'll come out after she loses the serve. But she's been scoring a lot of points with that serve."

Shoji and Willoughby were both pleased with her vast improvement on the eight-error night the Louisiana native had against Texas A&M on Friday.

"When you make errors then you're a target, and I don't want to be a target," Willoughby said.

Shoji said he talked with Willoughby about the errors and advised her on how to handle the problem.

"She understands now she doesn't have to get a kill every time out," Shoji said. "Sometimes the crowd puts pressure on you to make a play when you don 't have a good chance to put the ball down, and that's why she had so many errors the other night. This time, she hit smarter."

Some of her kills ricochet high off the floor and others explode in the hands of defenders.

"However I get a kill is fine with me," Willoughby said.

The Wahine methodically took apart the Hawkeyes in the first two games, not allowing them a point in the first until it was 8-0, and not until it was 9-0 in the second game.

Asked what happened when Hawaii fell behind in the third, Shoji said, "We kind of lost interest in the match at that point, I think."

Willoughby and Lima (who had a game-high 14 digs) combined for eight kills in the final game.

"Our goal was to shut them down, and not let them think they could play against us," said Lima. "Then we had a little problem in the third game, but we had our goal and we decided they weren't going to score any more points and we scored 12 in a row."

Iowa head coach Rita Buck-Crockett, a two-time Olympian, praised Kahumoku's consistency as an outside hitter.

"I wish she played for me," said Buck-Crockett.

Kahumoku said it's important for the Wahine to bring the right attitude into today's match with their rivals from Westwood.

"We have to go in there with the mindset that this is going to be a battle," she said. "They're not going to roll over and die just because we're in Hawaii. We have a lot of fans but these girls (UCLA) have played together for three years and they're very dynamic. Kristee Porter is probably one of the best hitters in this country."

Porter, a junior outside hitter, had 33 kills for the Bruins against the Aggies yesterday. Another junior ,Ashley Bowles, had 20 kills.

Willoughby said she knows Porter.

"I'm pretty excited about playing UCLA because Kristee and I played together in junior nationals," Willoughy said. "I'm a right-sider and she's a left-sider and we're going to go at it."

Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Classic Saturday's match Texas A&M def. Iowa, 16-14, 15-9, 15-9 Yesterday's matches UCLA def. Texas A&M, 15-2, 10-15, 15-11, 15-8 Hawaii def. Iowa, 15-3, 15-1, 15-7. Today's match UCLA vs. Hawaii, 5 p.m., Stan Sheriff Center.

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UH Athletics
Ka Leo O Hawaii