COURTESY OF KEVIN JAKAHI
Jazmin Paakaula, Lindsey Lee and Ashley Hanohano, from left, led St. Joseph to the 2002 title match.
Longtime friends
sticking togetherJazmin Paakaula, Lindsey Lee
and Ashley Hanohano are headed
to Fairfield University
It's almost like a movie script.
Three 10-year-old Big Island girls decide they love volleyball and want to play together as long as they can.
They are good at it. When they are 12 they play on a national-champion age-group team, the YMCA Na Opio Juniors.
They eventually attend 216-student St. Joseph High School in Hilo, where their team shocks the state by reaching the Hawaii high-school championship match in 2002 -- the "Hoosiers" of volleyball.
And on April 14, 2004, they all sign national letters of intent for scholarships each worth $36,000 per year to attend and play for NCAA Division I Fairfield University in Connecticut.
"It has always been my dream to play volleyball with my two best friends after high school," setter Ashley Hanohano said.
Her two best friends and teammates -- past, present and future -- are hitters Lindsey Lee and Jazmin Paakaula.
Together with last season's starting libero, Kiana Kauwe (Kamehameha '03) of Hawaii Kai, they will give Fairfield four players from Hawaii.
None of the St. Joseph girls had ever been to the East Coast before their official visit to Fairfield in January. Hanohano's longest trip had been to Nevada.
"We brought them purposely at the coldest time of the year so they would know how cold it gets," Fairfield coach Jeff Werneke said.
"It was beautiful with the snow," Hanohano said. "The athletic director told us that 'if you love it with snow, you will really love it in the fall.'
"We liked the school and the surroundings and the people."
For the record, Fairfield is 4,926 miles northeast of Hilo.
But it is not isolated. New York City is 48 miles southwest and Boston an hour-and-a-half drive northeast.
That proximity is part of what sold Hanohano.
"Even if my friends had gone to another college I would have signed with Fairfield because they have a great communications program," said Hanohano, who will probably do internships in Boston or New York.
But what of the risk to the coach who is investing almost half of his nine scholarships in players who will be nearly 5,000 miles from home?
"We recruit good people first who happen to be good athletes and good volleyball players," Werneke said. "When you take that approach, you are not at risk."
He had scouted Hanohano, Lee and Paakaula at club tournaments in Las Vegas and in Davis, Calif.
"We already knew they could play," he said.
In the Fairfield release announcing the signings, Werneke said:
"Ashley is one of the most experienced players I've ever seen or recruited. ... Lindsey is one of those rare athletes that come around every five to 10 years. ... Jazmin has a rare combination of power, finesse and ball control and possesses a high volleyball I.Q."
Hanohano said, "The coach told us he has always wanted to coach a team of Hawaiian girls because they have great finesse."
He will get his wish next fall.
Short spikes: At Rutgers, Werneke coached Casey Castillo (Kamehameha '00), who will be a fifth-year senior this fall, and Megan Edwards (Saint Francis), who played professionally in Indonesia after college.
St. Joseph will have four alumnae playing Division I volleyball in the fall. Sarah Mason ('03) of Oregon was picked on the Pac-10 All-Freshman team last fall.
Rachelle Hanohano, Ashley's mom and coach of all three girls both in club and high school, says they are outstanding students.
"Lindsey Lee has a current GPA (grade-point average) of 3.88 and Ashley and Jazmin both are 3.57," she said. 4.0 is straight-As. ... Teammates voted the three girls co-captains of the St. Joseph volleyball team last fall. They also played soccer and on a BIIF Division II title-contending basketball team.
Ashley Hanohano says all three seniors were also offered scholarships by Morgan State in Maryland, Mesa State in Colorado, UH-Hilo and Chaminade. They canceled a scheduled trip to Morgan State after they visited Fairfield.
BACK TO TOP |
Vols’ Mahelona set
to step in for fellow
Hawaii athleteThe Kealakehe alumnus will try
to fill the shoes of former Kahuku
star J.T. Mapu at TennesseeTennessee's Volunteers have lost a starting defensive tackle from Hawaii for the next two football seasons because sophomore J.T. Mapu of Kahuku is leaving in June for a two-year church mission.
But not to worry. His replacement-apparent is also from Hawaii and was rated as the top junior college defensive-tackle prospect in the nation last season.
Jesse Mahelona, a 2001 Kealakehe High School graduate, played only two full games last season at Orange Coast (Calif.) because of a broken right foot, but was rated by Rivals.com and TheInsiders.com as the No. 1 defensive tackle coming out of junior college.
"The Vols need him to play like that," wrote the beat writer for the Tennessean newspaper.
Mahelona thinks he is up to the challenge. After one spirited workout during spring practice, he told the Tennessean, "All I know is that today everybody saw what I could do, and I think I proved myself."
His position coach, Dan Brooks, understates his validation of Mahelona's evaluation: "We are pleased. He will make a significant contribution next fall."
"Reason No. 1," Brooks says, is that "he can really run for a big guy (6-2, 295 pounds) ... He has really good, innate quickness.
"He plays the game hard ... he gets off blocks and makes plays."
Mehelona sees himself as a catalyst. "When I make plays," he says, "I lift up the players around me. The intensity keeps bumping up."
Another account of a scrimmage in the Tennessean called him "a disrupter in the middle."
Mahelona got his AA degree in January so he could enroll at Tennessee in time for spring practice. Both he and Brooks think that was important.
"Had I not come in the spring I would have been lost," Mahelona says. "The SEC (Southeastern Conference) is big-time football. It's hard to learn the plays -- you blitz, stunt, drop into coverage, contain on the outside.
"It takes time to learn."
Mahelona says he misses his family in Kailua-Kona, where his father is a minister. "I miss my family, miss home. They talk different here, the weather is different -- freezing cold -- the food is different."
It helps, he says, that his roommate is J.C. All-American Albert Toeaina, a Polynesian from California.
It also helps that his older brother Steve is a fullback at Tusculum College in Tennessee, about an hour away from Knoxville.
Mahelona says Tennessee has petitioned to get a medical redshirt year for last season, but says, "All I need is two. I'll be gone."
Presumably, he means to the NFL.
End zone: In the two full games he played before he was hurt last season at Orange Coast junior college, Mahelona had 16 tackles, including 3.5 sacks and 6.5 for losses. ... His freshman season he led the team in sacks and was voted Most Valuable Player. ... Mahelona was in Manoa for a semester. He "gray shirted" at UH (took fewer than 12 units so his NCAA eligibility clock would not start ticking) in the fall of 2001 before he transferred to Orange Coast in Costa Mesa. ... Mahelona's 21st birthday was April 7.
