FOUR FOR THE FUTURE
By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS
RAFU SPORTS EDITOR
Saturday, Nov. 3, 2007

A young Occidental volleyball team has a solid foundation on which to build for the coming years.

Photos by MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS/Rafu Shimpo
From left, Jamie Nikami, Lahelakuupokii Cleveland, Ginger Grimes and Lisa Fukuzato run a drill for the camera, after practice Wednesday at Occidental.

Honolulu native Grimes focuses on the ball as she practices serves.

Outside hitter Fukuzato didn’t wander
far from home to join the Tigers–she’s
an Eagle Rock High School grad.

EAGLE ROCK.–Occidental’s new head volleyball coach faces a daunting task in her first year of skippering the Tigers. She has a squad that features seven freshman and only three seniors.

And that’s just fine for her.

Coach Cathy Tennis has found strength in her young team, and hopes she can keep this group in place for the next several years.

“La Verne has taken over the league the last seven years, so it’s been pretty tough, but all the school’s are up-and-coming,” Tennis said. “Whittier’s got a new coach as well and they’ve got a developing program with a lot of new recruits. Here, we’re focusing on getting this core group started. We have seven freshmen. We need to keep them and build on that base. It’s difficult to come in as a first-year coach and have only four returnees, one sophomore and three seniors.”

At that core is frosh outside hitter Lisa Fukuzato, who came over the hill from Eagle Rock High. She said Oxy offered the best of all worlds for her after high school.

“I was interested in a strong academic program, and there was a chance to play volleyball,” the 18-year-old biology major said, adding that the school also helped her put together an attractive financial aid package.

Sophomore setter Jamie Nikami likes the relative calm of playing in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, after weathering the fierce competition in her hometown, Seattle.

“Especially in Div. III, there are so many schools in California that once you get down to this level, people show up and expect to play all the time,” Nikami said. “High school can be intense, in the Seattle area, just because there are fewer schools and the competition is tough.”

Nikami, 19, is an Asian Studies major, with an emphasis on Japanese. She plans to study in Japan next year. Coach Tennis is especially keen on how
Nikami controls traffic on offense and as an added bonus is a potent defensive player.

“She’s a solid player all the way around. She’s serving on defense as well. She’s second or third on our team in digs,” Tennis said.

A pair of standout freshmen from Hawaii are part of Tennis’ future plans as well. Setter/libero Ginger Grimes and middle blocker Lahelakuupokii
Cleveland starred in volleyball and basketball on Oahu, and now find themselves in a big city far from familiar faces or spam musubi in the nearest 7-Eleven.

It’s a little more intense playing at the college level and I don’t know anyone on the other teams,” said Cleveland, 18, out of the Honolulu Waldorf School. “At home, I pretty much knew everyone else, even though they were from different schools.”

Tennis is well aware that she is heading up a relative small team, with most of her players 5-foot-6 or shorter. She maintains that keeping this young squad together and focusing on sound fundamentals will be the key to the Tigers’ future success.

“Compared to other schools in our league, we’re relatively short, but with the recruiting class we’re working on now, as long as we keep this solid core seven, we’ll be all right,” she said.

Today brings a formidable challenge for Oxy, as they host Central College,
Iowa at 1 p.m., then have to regroup and refresh for Caltech at 6. Next Tuesday, the Tigers have a rematch against SCIAC perennial rival Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, who they surprised on Sept. 29, taking the contest all the way to a fifth set and nearly pulling off the upset.