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Monday, December 4, 2000
Sea Warriors When the Hawaii Pacific University women's volleyball players and coaches stepped off the plane late yesterday afternoon after returning to Honolulu, they disembarked as more than the newly crowned national champions.
perfected their
title run
Hawaii Pacific first undefeated
team to win women's NCAA
Division II volleyball
championshipBy Brandon Lee
Special to the Star-BulletinAs the first NCAA Division II team to go through its season undefeated, the 2000 Sea Warriors were the embodiments of perfection.
About small crowd of about 100 family, friends, fans and media greeted the Sea Warriors at their gate with the deafening noise of their band reverberating throughout the small lobby. Head coach Tita Ahuna held their championship trophy up high as she, the other coaches and her players smiled from ear to ear after returning from Sioux Falls, S.D. and the national championship tournament victorious.
HPU completed its perfect season last Saturday night with a convincing sweep in the final over host Augustana College, 15-2, 15-7, 15-6, before a championship-record crowd of 3,307 mostly-Vikings fans.
The Sea Warriors had a relatively easy time in capturing the national title.
As they did against the Vikings, they also swept through their quarterfinal and semifinal matches at Elmen Center.
"This is the culmination of a lot of hard work and it's nice to bring back the championship to HPU," Ahuna said. "It's amazing what the ladies did."
Though this championship marks the second in three years for HPU (other 1998), most of the talk from Ahuna and her players understandably centered on going undefeated in what has been a dream season.
"No doubt about it," said Ahuna, when asked if this was the best Div. II team ever assembled. "I'm just proud of them, I don't know if it can get any better than this."
The Sea Warriors put four players on the All-Tournament team: outside hitters Debbie Sant'Anna and Flavia Gabinio, middle blocker Susy Garbelotti and setter Nia Tuitele.
Garbelotti and Tuitele will bring their stellar play back for next year, but departing seniors Sant'Anna and Gabinio went out in style.
After contemplating quitting the team after last season, Sant'Anna became a first-time First Team All-American this year and led the Sea Warriors with a match-high 16 kills in the victory over the Vikings. Gabinio, who is largely responsible for recruiting Garbelotti and another talented Brazilian, outside hitter Roberta Robert, to HPU, chipped in with 12 kills and four blocks.
"This is very emotional, my life is like a soap opera right now," Sant'Anna said. "It could have been a very sad ending for me, but I turned around with a beautiful year and another national championship. Now we're undefeated, the first team in history."
"This is the best way to finish-with a great victory, undefeated-it's like a perfect season," added Gabinio.
Besides Sant'Anna and Gabinio, the Sea Warriors also lose departing senior outside hitter Kristi Lezchuk.
Despite these significant losses and wanting to savor the second championship in her three-year career at HPU, soft-spoken team leader Tuitele was able to lay claim above the raucous at the terminal that the Sea Warriors will be back for another run at the national title next year.
"Most definitely you always want to come in with the national title as your goal," Tuitele said. "It's going to be hard to replace two outstanding hitters in Debbie and Flavia, but I think coach (Ahuna) has some players coming in for next year and we hope to do fine again."
Hawaii Pacific
