Approaching her final triple jump at the HHSAA track and field championships in May, Kadara Marshall looked up at the Oahu sky and turned nostalgic. ADVERTISING Approaching her final triple jump at the HHSAA track and field championships in May,
Approaching her final triple jump at the HHSAA track and field championships in May, Kadara Marshall looked up at the Oahu sky and turned nostalgic.
Soaking everything in, Marshall was determined to have her last leap epitomize her four-year career at Waiakea.
“I was like this is your last athletic event in high school,” Marshall said. “You’ve done this; three sports for four years, just go all out and make yourself happy.”
When Marshall landed, she was a state champion.
“I did that, and I surprised myself and everybody else,” Marshall said.
Her track and field career is over – there were a few restless nights involved – and her soccer days are also done, which is just as well. It’s Marshall’s volleyball ventures that are just beginning.
During the summer, Marshall likely will turn to the sky again and feel a bit wistful before she takes another leap. This one will land her in Scottsbluff, Neb., where she has a full-ride scholarship at Western Nebraska, a junior college volleyball powerhouse.
The decision didn’t come easily. Marshall, a 5-foot-8 middle blocker, said she had offers from two Division II schools that involved playing volleyball and participating in track and field.
“It was very hard for me to turn away offers, but I didn’t want to run track, I just wanted to jump,” she said. “I decided to focus all my energy into one sport, and Western Nebraska is a great feeder program for D-I and D-II schools.”
Then the state triple jump championship happened.
“After winning, I regretted (the decision) a little more,” she said. “But you have to know when to let go.”
Marshall’s favorite sport as a child was soccer, but she stopped playing for a stretch, and the summer before she entered the eighth grade Mike and Becky Marshall told their daughter she “couldn’t just sit on my coach and do nothing for the rest of my life.”
So volleyball it was, though she called her entry to the sport awkward and weird.
Marshall’s playing days at Waiakea started off humbly as well. The Warriors were in rebuilding mode her freshman and sophomore seasons, but Marshall developed into a two-time All-BIIF selection at middle blocker during her junior and senior seasons, and Waiakea ended a Division I drought each season.
In 2014, they beat Hilo in the BIIF semifinals to reach the HHSAA tournament for the first time in four years, and in 2015 Waiakea finally dethroned five-time champion Kamehameha to halt a six-year BIIF title drought.
“Looking back, it was something you’d typically want,” she said. “Freshman year I got to learn a few things, sophomore year there were building blocks and junior year it all came together. Senior year was amazing.”
Marshall hopes to have a similar experience at Western Nebraska, which reached the juco national final last season and lost in five sets. Marshall has never been to Nebraska, but she already has a friend on the ground in 2015 Kamehameha graduate Maraea O’Connor, who played in 36 matches last season for the Cougars. After going 42-5, four players on their roster moved on to four-year schools.
If Marshall is to do the same, University of Hawaii at Hilo coach Tino Reyes said she would have to transform into a dynamic player in the middle.
“You have to hit for a high percentage and be error-free,” said Reyes, who mentors Marshall on her club team, Pilipaa, along with Chris Leonard.
Marshall is thinking of majoring in criminal justice, and she leaves the Big Island with a little advice: take the leap.
“It’s very important for everyone to know that there is a college out there for everybody,” she said. “Honestly, even if you’re not an all-star player in high school, there is still going to be a college that wants to recruit you.”
