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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, April 15, 2001


Strike might cost Kahumoku time with Team USA

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

Lily Kahumoku returned from training in Japan with her University of Hawai'i Wahine teammates to an invitation to work with USA Volleyball's A-2 team this summer.

Unfortunately for Kahumoku, she also returned to a strike that might prevent her from going to Colorado Springs. The All-American said if the UH strike goes much longer she will have to go to summer school to fulfill academic obligations for her major. That would prevent her from training with Team USA.

Kahumoku was one of 14 players invited to the A-2 team, which is designed to "develop the top collegiate players in the country into potential national team players." The team, which will play international competition, is in its third year.

New Team USA coach Toshi Yoshida calls A-2 "an essential step in the national team pipeline." Invited players also include Cheryl Weaver, Tayibba Haneef, Elisha Thomas and Brittany Hochevar from Long Beach State, Nina Puikkonen from Brigham Young and Hedder Ilustre, who will transfer from Cal State-Northridge to UH in the fall.

Ilustre, a 5-foot-5 defensive specialist, is the sister of former Wahine Heidi Ilustre. Hedder's transfer has been granted by CSUN and she will be eligible this season.

Jennifer Fopma, a 6-3 all-region middle blocker, will also transfer to Manoa, from Pepperdine, but will have to sit out one year. The Waves released Fopma, but told her she did not "fit the NCAA exceptions list" for the "one-time transfer exception." That bylaw, which is an option for student-athletes in any sport but basketball, ice hockey and Division I-A football, would have allowed her to play this fall.

Fopma appealed the exception ruling, but was denied. She can train with UH, and accept a scholarship, but cannot compete until 2002.

"I'll get experience with the team and then I can come in and play," Fopma said. "It's OK."

llustre and Fopma both have two years of eligibility remaining.

The Wahine went on their first foreign training trip in six years over Spring Break. They spent nine days in different cities in Japan, and trained six days, sometimes for as long as six hours. They stayed in hotels and one "dorm" — the factory clubhouse at Toyota.

Ten players from the 2001 team made the trip, and experienced snow, gyms without heat and three days of sightseeing. The trip was designed to help them bond, expand their horizons and, especially, improve their ballhandling.

"You go to Japan to work on ballhandling," coach Dave Shoji said. "What you get out of training with the Japanese is passing and defense, and I think we got better in that respect. Which we really needed because we lost (Jessica) Sudduth and (Veronica) Lima, and those were our main (ballhandling) people.

"It really benefited Lily and Kim (Willoughby) and (Lauren) Duggins, and the backrow players. I really felt they improved."

Hawai'i worked with club teams and Nittaidai, which will play an exhibition here Oct. 30. The Wahine beat Nittaidai and Toyota in formal competition.

"We are better now than we used to be when we went to Japan," Shoji said. "We've got players now who, if they get the ball where they want it, are unstoppable — Lily, Kim, Maja (Gustin). They are just physically better than the players we saw."

Freshman Melody Eckmier did not play in Japan because she red-shirted last season. She is expected to be a candidate for the starting middle blocking position left vacant when Veronica Lima returned to Brazil in December.

Eckmier tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee as a high school senior and spent last season rehabilitating. The day before the Wahine left for the final four last December, she injured her right knee. Tests taken after Hawai'i returned from Virginia determined that it was not an ACL injury, but a problem with the patella.

Eckmier has been working out without pain during the offseason. She said last week was the first time she had played without pain or hesitation since her knee injury two years ago last week.