Rainbow duo licensed to kill

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

At a time in the volleyball season when your next loss is your last, it must be comforting to put your fate in the hands of terminators Lily Kahumoku and Kim Willoughby. The University of Hawai'i All-Americans can make a difficult skill look ridiculously easy.

One coach says Kim Willoughby is the "most explosive" hitter in the nation and Lily Kahumoku the "most fluid." Advertiser library photo • Aug. 22, 2002

The Kamehameha graduate came armed with an arsenal of shots limited only by her imagination. Kahumoku's list is some 15 deep and includes the "no-look line" and "stupid angle" that bounces inside the 10-foot line.

The Bayou Basher ascribes more to the "elevate and destroy" philosophy, which is fine by assistant coach Charlie Wade. "There are only three shots we really want them to work on," Wade says, over-simplifying an intricate skill. "Hard, harder and hardest."

The Rainbow Wahine juniors rank among the top 15 nationally in kills heading into their sub-regional tomorrow at the Stan Sheriff Center. While most hitters go where the set takes them, Kahumoku and Willoughby take the ball pretty much wherever they want.

They give Hawai'i the rare relentless outside attack. "No bad rotation" is the way Fresno State coach Lindy Vivas defines it. Notre Dame coach Debbie Brown, who came here with the country's best block and left with two three-game losses, called it "another level."

"We don't see one outside hitter on a team like either of them," Brown said. "They have two."

Still, they average about a dozen kills a game — one fewer than Western Kentucky, Hawai'i's first-round opponent. Both blasted 30-plus kills in the 'Bows' only five-game match this year.

Kahumoku's numbers are more prodigious than they were in her All-America season two seasons ago (she did not play last year). There have still been more than enough sets for Willoughby, whose statistics are nearly as mind-boggling as last year, when she had the fourth-best offensive production in NCAA history.

They are hardly one-dimensional, with nearly 30 double-doubles (10-plus kills and digs) between them and primary passer responsibilities. But they are here to hit. To see — and feel — their talent at floor level is an unforgettable experience.

Stanford's John Dunning, who coaches one of the finest hitters in the world in Logan Tom, called Willoughby the "most explosive" hitter in the country and Kahumoku the "most fluid." Ironically, Kahumoku would love to hit as hard as Willoughby, who would love to have the massive "hitting vocabulary" of Kahumoku.

Kahumoku's fluidity comes from her 6-foot-2 frame and long limbs. From an approach, she can touch 10 feet 3, about the same as the 6-foot Willoughby. But while her teammate makes a full-out assault on the ball, Kahumoku sneaks up on it and sends it any of several directions, with surprising pace.

She traces that versatility to being a converted left-hander and hitting from her elbow, not her shoulders.

"Lily has a weird arm," Willoughby says. "She doesn't hit like most. She hits from her elbow and it allows her to do all the crazy stuff. I try to hit like her and I hurt myself."

In the 2000 final four, Kahumoku's imaginative style made her the only Rainbow Wahine to hurt Nebraska's huge block. Dave Shoji says she has the "purest arm swing" of any player he has coached. In one game against San Diego State this season, she buried 11 kills in 13 swings. Shoji called it "beautiful to watch."

Willoughby's beauty is in her brute strength. One coach this year said the difference between Tom and Willoughby was that "Logan can beat you, but Willoughby can beat you and hurt you."

At Fresno this season, she missed a jump serve and a guy standing at the back door caught the ball on the fly. Shoji says Willoughby hits so hard that if the ball gets by the block it is almost "undiggable."

It can also be dangerous. The ball comes so fast — one opponent described it as "screaming off her hand" — that defenders who keep their hands low, as they are taught, take it in the face. It is impossible to get their hands up in time. They aren't the only ones in danger. Willoughby hit a Notre Dame blocker in the face and the ball landed, as Kahumoku put it, "in upper bowl double 'L.' "

"When she knocks girls off their feet," Kahumoku said, "I think it's hysterical."

Defenders don't laugh.

"Honestly, you don't know where Kim's going to hit the ball," said BYU libero Uila Crabbe, a Kamehameha graduate. "And, you don't know where to play defense because she has so many options when she's that high up there. I bet she can see the whole court."

That athleticism is what initially sets Willoughby, Kahumoku and all the elite hitters apart. Coaches also point to their instinctive feel for the game, sound mechanics and exceptional vision.

"Things look slow to them," Wade says. "Their reactions and the stuff they do ... most people would look rushed. They're taking it nice and slow. They make it look easy because they have so much time, in their mind."

All they'll have all the time in the world, at least until the next loss.