On the courts: Is ASIJ’s volleyball team the best of all time?
Published: October 14, 2012
“Spirit Day” Saturday was sure a happy one at American School In Japan’s Mustang Valley, if the Mustangs’ sports teams’ performance was any sort of gauge.
Football pounded Robert D. Edgren 47-14. Tennis? A pair of 5-0 sweeps by the boys and girls over Nile C. Kinnick.
And indoors, it took four sets (ASIJ used mostly subs in the third set), but the reigning Far East Division I Volleyball Tournament champion Mustangs beat Kinnick for the third straight time behind reigning D-I MVP Liz Thornton and her setting partner Baileigh Gibson.
That tells me the Mustangs are odds on and primed for a D-I repeat. It also lends serious credibility to the argument that ASIJ may be fielding its best volleyball team of all time. Maybe the best two-year run in the tournament’s history.
Many teams out there can make strong cases otherwise, including the Zama American and International School Manila teams of the late 1970s and early ’80s, who played gnip-gnop with the title for five years. Seisen International’s consistent excellence under longtime coach Dee Mancini. ASIJ’s power house mid-1980s teams of setter Lisa Schroder. The 1991 Mustangs champion team fueled by Katherine Greig. Seoul American’s 2010 title team of Liz Gleaves and Destinee Harrison. Southern’s 2000 and 2002 title teams of Jhunnie Rios, Wella Comoda and Charlene Pama. And my pick for best of all time, Academy of Our Lady of Guam from 1989 to 2003, most of those teams coached by the late, great Ernesto Abanes and driven by a parade of solid hitters including Kayo Wada, Laurie Yoshida and Leticia Pangelinan.
ASIJ entered this season with eight of the 10 components it brought with them to Seoul American High, host of last year’s D-I Tournament. They didn’t drop a set the whole week. Lost just once in the regular season, their first meeting with Kinnick.
Thornton became the third of three sisters to win a D-I title and earn MVP honors with ASIJ, and she’s odds-on to become the only one to do it twice.
Agreed, the matches have to be played on the court, and ASIJ still has a rematch at Kinnick next week. Seisen and Christian Academy Japan will have some things to say about the outcome, as will Seoul American and the erstwhile Guam powerhouses of years gone by.
But the road to the championship this year runs through Mustang Valley. Repeat after me: The road to the championship this year runs through Mustang Valley.
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That said, you have to tip your hat to the consistent excellence of Kinnick in the regular season. Unlike years past when a star or three or four would do the heavy lifting, this team is better than the sum of its parts. No standouts; just hard workers. A 91-2 regular-season record since the start of 2009, and a record three straight DODDS Japan and Kanto Plain titles (no DODDS school had ever done that before) are nothing to sneeze at. The road to the DODDS Japan title, at least, goes through Yokosuka Naval Base.
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Anybody see the weekend Taejon Christian International’s Alexandra Zickefoose had? A major reason why Seoul American has had such trouble solving the Dragons puzzle the last two seasons. She had 37 kills in 112 total attempts with just 11 errors as the Dragons swept Seoul Foreign and beat the Falcons in five sets at home. TCIS might not win the Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference Five-Cities Tournament later this month, but Zickefoose, the Moimoi sister setters and rising freshman star Sarah Roberts will give them a fighting chance.
Sidebar to that: TCIS would make some serious noise at the Far East D-II Tournament, if only Asia-Pacific Activities Conference rules permitted it.
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Having seen Daegu High and its strong junior contingent, Katelyn Nott, Lari Robertson and Sarah Wright, the only thing I see separating the Warriors from winning the D-II tournament on its home court is a lack of consistency and depth. The former two are growing into middle-blocking position, while Wright is a veteran setter (and a good golfer, as is her senior boys counterpart Paul Jackson). Not in the same class as Kristina Bergman and Angie Robinet, but they’re the core of a team that stands an excellent chance of returning to the title podium they last stood upon two seasons ago. Know that they absolutely abhor the notion of seeing a repeat of last fall, when Morrison Academy rallied from behind in a two-match final to capture the crown.
That said, Taylor Byrom of Osan American is a handful; the Cougars could play spoiler, as could Sam Herritt and Matthew C. Perry. Bailee Olson, Kristina Baldwin and Zama American have made great strides, but coach Kelly Wigton’s charges are perhaps a year away. The wild cards are always the international schools, Morrison and Sacred Heart.
Less than three weeks away.
