Hawai'i defender lifts Barry volleyball
By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer
The women's volleyball coach at Barry University in Florida, the reigning NCAA Division II champion, is so enamored of players from Hawai'i that he says he is going to rename his team's defensive specialist position "Hawaiian specialist."
Jessica Jung (Punahou '98, of Makiki), a 5-foot-5 left-hander, has started at that spot for Barry the past four years and another left-hander from Hawai'i, Jill Dobashi (Kaua'i '00, of Lihu'e) is poised to replace Jung next season, when the position officially becomes "libero" nationwide.
Barry coach Dave Nichols has run volleyball camps on Kaua'i and saw Hawai'i club teams play when he was a high school coach in California.
"Hawai'i has the highest skill level of young players," Nichols says. "You cannot reproduce the skill level that comes out of Hawai'i. Their love and passion for the game carries over.
"I'll take a Hawaiian player sight unseen."
Jung exemplified Hawai'i volleyball, Nichols said. "Jessica has classic Hawaiian style and form, beautiful technical background, great quickness and great love of the game.
"She had a fantastic senior year. She played beautiful volleyball and won some key matches for us," Nichols said. Barry went 32-2 and won its last 21 matches.
At Barry's annual Sports Awards banquet last week, Jung was honored as the team's Most Improved Player.
"She made huge improvement" from 2000, when she had "lost a little confidence," because of a slow-healing ankle injury, Nichols said.
"I went out the door a little bit mentally in my junior year. I've sprained that ankle eight times in my career," Jung said, "but I came back in my senior year."
"The skills were always there," Nichols said.
Jung chose to attend Barry in 1998 after making January visits to Massachusetts, Gonzaga and Boston U. "I couldn't handle the cold," she said. "When I got to Miami, it was 70, sunny and I went to the beach. It was much more my vibe."
She is a biology major with pre-med credits and a 3.4 GPA.
QUICK SETS: The other place Dave Nichols apparently will take players from "sight unseen" is Brazil. Barry's four Brazilians all made the all-tournament team at the NCAA-II final four. ... Nichols said Barry will come to Hawai'i for a season-opening tournament at Brigham Young-Hawai'i next season and BYUH will come to Barry in 2003. .... Jill Dobashi is a double transfer, from University of Portland and Emory. She left Emory because the air pollution in Atlanta was aggravating her asthma, Nichols said. ... Nichols played at UCLA "back when short fat guys could play," he says (1974-77). Kainoa Downing of Hawai'i was one of Barry's teammates at UCLA.
