University of Hawaii at Hilo’s David Kaneshiro is optimistic heading into his third year as the Vulcans women’s basketball coach, blessed with a veteran team, some quality recruits, and good chemistry.
“I’m really excited to get started,” Kaneshiro said prior to Monday, the official starting date for NCAA basketball practice. “The last three weeks of conditioning, the girls have worked really hard with the weights, running and skill drills. It’s a good group; the girls are very unselfish. A lot goes into being a good team, but working hard, preparing the right way and having good team chemistry all helps.”
Kaneshiro has nine returnees, including eight seniors, and four newcomers on his 13-member squad.
“We don’t have overwhelming size, but we have enough size and talent to be successful,” Kaneshiro said. “We lost Hillary Hurley from last year, and we’re a little smaller overall, but we should have enough size and athleticism to make up for it.”
Hurley, a 6-foot-2 power forward, averaged 15.8 points and 10.3 rebounds per game last year while earning first team all-Pacific West Conference honors.
“Hillary was our bail-out player when the shot clock ran down and we needed to get up a shot,” Kaneshiro said. “She could either get up a pretty good shot or get fouled. This year, we won’t have Hillary’s inside presence. We’ll be more of a perimeter team.
“That doesn’t mean we’re going to be shooting threes all game long. It just means we’ll do more cutting and penetrating to the basket to open things up. It also means we have less of a margin for error, and will need to execute better.”
The Vulcans started practice Monday and open their season with an exhibition game against NCAA Division I University of Hawaii on Oct. 26 at Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu. It will be the second straight year that the Vulcans play the Rainbow Wahine in the preseason.
“The girls are excited to be playing the Rainbow Wahine,” Kaneshiro said. “I wish we had more practice time, but it was a good experience last year.”
The Rainbow Wahine, under new coach Laura Beeman, have three former Big Island prep standouts on their roster — juniors Vicky Tagalicod (Hilo High), Kanisha Bello (Waiakea/Kamehameha-Hawaii) and Pua Kailiawa (Ka‘u).
In playing UH so early, Kaneshiro’s Vulcans only have 11 days to prepare. Still, the soft-spoken Kaneshiro is upbeat about the 2012-13 season and to see how well his hard-working team fares in conference play.
“It should be fun watching our girls improve and seeing how well we can compete in the PacWest this year,” the Vulcans coach said. “We’ve got a good group to work with and we’re all looking forward to the season.”
Kaneshiro also announced that Tricia Amuimuia, a promising 5-8 freshman out of Waiakea High, will redshirt this year.
Kaneshiro will be assisted this season by returning coaches Fred Collins, Wayne Kaneshiro and Donn Kansako.
Golf team in second
Jaime Hall fired rounds of 71 and 69 to spark a strong afternoon session to lift the University of Hawaii at Hilo into second place after the first day of the Sonoma State University Invitational on Monday in Santa Rosa, Calif.
The 13-team NCAA Division II golf tournament is being played at Santa Rosa Golf and Country Club.
Host Sonoma State carded a two-round total of 568 to grab 10-shot lead over the Earl Tamiya-coached Vulcans (578). UH-Hilo was followed by Cal Sate East Bay (579), UC San Diego (581), William Jessup (587), California Baptist and Wilmington-DE (588), Cal State San Bernardino (593), Holy Names (594), Academy of Art (601), BYU-Hawaii (604), Dominican of California (605) and Notre Dame de Namur (625).
“We had a tough morning but came back and played much better in the afternoon,” Tamiya said. “We’re going to have to play really well tomorrow (today), but 10 shots is a lot to make up.”
Heading into today’s final round, Hall is tied for third place at 4-under-par 140 and chasing Sonoma State’s Matt Medeiros (137).
“Jaime played well today,” Tamiya said. “But he had some rough spots. The fairways and roughs are muddy and the ball sticks. Overall, it was a good day.”
Other opening day UH-Hilo scores were: Corey Kozuma, 74-71—145, tied for 15th; Chris Shimomura, 81-69—150, T-38th; Dalen Yamauchi (77-74—151, T-45th; and Kyten Little, 73-81—154, T-59th. Vulcan Christian Agosto is competing as an individual and shot 81-73—154 and was tied for 59th place.
