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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Tuesday, April 30, 2002

Rainbow Wahine might sign one more

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

GOO: Wing player would help fill void
With two seniors gone and three players, including one starter, transferring, University of Hawai'i Rainbow Wahine basketball recruiting has returned from the future.

UH coaches Vince Goo, Da Houl and Serenda Valdez will spend their summer scanning recruits for the 2003-'04 season, but also looking much more carefully for one wing player for the upcoming season. A junior college recruit visited the campus last weekend and coaches are also looking at foreign players.

"We're OK," said Goo, the head coach. "We had 15 scholarships that were all used. We got three releases. We just need to fill it with one wing. It's not necessary to fill the others now, not for what we lost."

Goo, whose team reached its third consecutive WNIT this season, received commitments from freshmen Trisha Nishimoto (Iolani point guard), Amy Sanders (California wing), Penny Jones (Utah forward) and Callie Spooner (Washington center) during the early signing period.

Earlier this month, freshman Chelsea Wagner, sophomore Christa Brossman and junior Arijana Sijercic said they would leave UH after this semester. Goo said he knew all three were considering transfers. He called their losses "regretful," but said their reasons were "legitimate."

Wagner started after April Atuaia, the 2001 Western Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year, suffered a knee injury during the WAC season. Wagner set a freshman record with 37 3-pointers, but requested a release to return home to Oregon for personal reasons, including the death of her best friend.

Brossman played in all but two games in her two seasons, averaging 11 minutes. She said she hopes to "play somewhere that fits more with my strengths."

Sijercic, from Sarajevo, Bosnia, appeared in just nine games after transferring from New Mexico Junior College. She plans to attend Augusta (Ga.) State, a Division II school closer to her fiance in Kentucky.

Goo said volleyball All-American Kim Willoughby will again be on a basketball scholarship in the fall. Her volleyball scholarship switched to basketball the first day she practiced with the basketball team in December because of an NCAA rule that gives scholarship priority to women's basketball over volleyball.

Willoughby, who will be a sophomore in basketball eligibility (she will be a junior in volleyball eligibility in the fall), appeared in 23 games and averaged 6.1 points and 5.6 rebounds.

"I had a meeting a few weeks back with Vince," Willoughby said. "We discussed different things, his rules, some things I did and got away with because it was my first time. He's expecting more from now on. ...

"He made it really clear to me, just told me if you want to play, these are the rules you have to follow. I decided I wanted to play."

Goo is also in the process of filling an assistant's position, after Jon Newlee took the head coaching job at Idaho State. Applications had to be postmarked by last Friday.