PUHI — Local volleyball club Ike Loa held tryouts for high school players Saturday afternoon at the Wilcox Gymnasium in Puhi.
The objective of the club is to give local girls exposure to college coaches and recruiters.
“The goal mainly is to get more Kauai girls opportunities for college recruitment,” said club director Joshua Mecham. “My daughter is going through it. … We just didn’t know anything on Kauai. Oahu, they’re a little bit more versed in that kind of thing. We just wanted to train girls for college recruitment versus just training for the next tournament. So, more next level training and more college awareness. There’s a lot of schools out there. You don’t have to be the best player on Kauai to get a scholarship. There’s Division I, Division II that give out scholarships.”
Other than going to various tournaments and combines, the club urges the young players to reach out to colleges.
“We encourage girls to write to coaches. (The coaches) can’t respond until they become a junior,” he said. “These kinds of things, I didn’t even know until about two years ago. It’s those kinds of things that we want to make the girls and the parents aware of.”
From the tryouts, teams will be put together for various tournaments and events off-island beginning in January. Events scheduled for Ike Loa will be on Oahu as well as tournaments in Colorado, Arizona and Florida.
Mecham expects teams of about 10 will be taken on each trip.
“Normally, we would play the girls up. Our goal is to get girls noticed from coaches,” Mecham said. “So if we have a 15- or 16-year-old, if she’s good enough, we’ll put her with the 18s.”
The club is also planning a trip to Osaka, Japan, in March to play club teams there. Mecham said every club player who wishes to go to Japan may.
“They’re actually going to make a tournament for us because the week that we’re there, it’s a holiday in Osaka,” Mecham said. “Whoever wants to go, right now we have a team of eight girls, but there’s going to be more who will be coming. I’m really excited for that.”
About 40 girls from Kapaa, Kauai and Waimea high schools and Island School attended.
Ike Loa held a previous tryout for middle school players on Oct. 27. About 30 girls attended that tryout.
Middle school club players will also attend events on Oahu, Arizona and Japan if they want, Mecham said.
