By Craig Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Nalani Yamashita was an all-Western Athletic
Conference pick this year.

If you couldn't pass, you couldn't play. No defense? No hitting, either.

Volleyball, Maui-style, was strict. The Yamashita ohana discipline, however, has paid off.

The Yamashita sisters - Nalani, Twaila and Tania - are all seeking a women's collegiate volleyball national title this month. Twaila could be the first if her Hawaii Pacific team continues to win at the NAIA national tournament this week.

Nalani, playing for the third-ranked University of Hawaii, and Tania, at No. 14 UC-Santa Barbara, will duke it out in the NCAA tourney. Of the three, Nalani, the eldest, has the best chance.

And it's her defense that has helped put the Wahine in that position, heading into Sunday's second-round match with Colorado, a 3-1 upset winner over No. 25 Oral Roberts last night. Hawaii coach Dave Shoji said Yamashita has re-invented the term "defensive specialist." She was named to the all-Western Athletic Conference team at that position.

She's not the smallest Wahine. But the 5-foot-6 ("Maybe 5-5," she says) Yamashita may have had the biggest impact on a team that's gone 62-3 ever since she put on a Hawaii uniform 16 months ago.

"Most of my childhood was spent playing defense," said Yamashita, who is fourth on the team in digs despite playing less than half a match every time out. "My family didn't let me hit until I learned to pass. My parents, my grandparents, all told me 'If you don't have a pass, you can't play. If you don't have any defense, you don't win any games.'

"Hitting is the easiest part of volleyball. But defense . . . it's something that has to happen. You have to focus. You have to visualize where the ball is going to be. You have to get there."

Yamashita, born in Wailuku, took the long way home. After all-star seasons at Maui High as a freshman and Mid-Pacific as a sophomore, she and her sisters moved to Colorado Springs, Colo., with her father, Thomas.

She led Dorherty High to the class 6A state title as a senior, when she was player of the year.

A few months after that championship, her father passed away; her mother, Norinne Quinsaat, moved from Paia, Maui, to allow her daughters to finish high school in Colorado.

Nalani ended up at Colorado State, where she was an outside hitter for the Rams and led them in digs. But the prep All-American knew what it was like to win and that wasn't happening at Colorado State. But CSU coach Rich Feller was talking to Shoji and mentioned "this Hawaiian girl who used to play for him that I should look at," Shoji said. "It happened that she was coming out to the Haili Tournament (on the Big Island) and I talked with her there."

"I wanted to take the chance, to better myself as a player and play for a better caliber team," Yamashita said. "I didn't know how it felt to win collegiately. I wanted to be with a good team that knew how to play, had a coaching staff who knew how to coach. I wanted feedback so I could become a more versatile player."

Yamashita has perhaps just one regret. She has a 34-inch vertical jump and would like to hit. From the back row, as she did last season, or even in the front row, as she did in high school and at CSU.

But the way the UH rotation scheme has been, Yamashita is no longer passing middle, which allowed her chances at back-row attacking. And junior blocker Cia Goods, Yamashita's tag-team substitution partner, has become more of a force at the net.

"It's the hardest thing to come off the bench," Yamashita said. "When you're on the sidelines you have to visualize that you're in there. It's all about visualizing and reading, knowing where you would be if that situation happened to you."

When the season is over, Yamashita, a sociology major, wants to work with children, teaching and coaching volleyball.

"My family wants me to coach younger kids and I'd like to make volleyball more of a fun sport for them to enjoy."

Yamashita also would like to play professionally.

"I like to hit and I've always done it," Yamashita said. "But it's the coaches' decision that I don't here. It doesn't matter any more. After this career (at UH), I'm going to hit. And no one is going to tell me I can or I can't."

No one should. Yamashita has played by the Maui rules.

She can pass. She can play.