|
|
|
Rams' Jennings Finally Gets Big-Game Visit
By Natalie Meisler, Denver Post
Dec. 9, 1999 Dec. 9 - Hawaii is a fantastic place for Mainlanders to visit, but Colorado State volleyball middle blocker Summer Jennings didn't want to live there anymore. The Hawaii native, born in January but named for the year-long summer, came to CSU because she wanted to experience the changing of the seasons. As a courtesy, her club coaches and Hawaii staff members Dave Shoji and Charlie Wade said they would recruit her if she wanted. She picked the Rams with the idea there would be a free trip home for Western Athletic Conference games. Conference politics intervened, so instead of a league game, CSU (30-2) is in Hawaii for the NCAA Mountain Region Sweet 16 match with defending NCAA champ Long Beach State (29-3). The winner of Thursday's 8 p.m. (MST) match advances against the winner of the Texas A&M-Hawaii regional semifinal. Jennings returns home with her teammates as nothing less than royalty. "I'm pretty excited to go home and play in front of my friends," she said. The only other school this year to reach the Sweet 16 in both women's basketball and volleyball is UCLA, the school that ended CSU's basketball season. "I think the athletes are just really great people and we knew each other really well," Jennings said. "We're a great support group for each other. We come to each other's game and matches. Our coaches are doing a really good job recruiting and coaching." Under the original WAC schedule of rotating opponents, the junior would have gone back for the first time this year. Then the WAC broke up 18 months ago. Jennings said she screamed, "Nooo." She gets home enough for free on frequent-flier miles, but going home with her team is something special. "I wanted to stay in the WAC so I could go home and play. That was one of the things I wanted to do," she said. Hawaii's president, Kenneth Mortimer, was so embittered by being left behind in the WAC breakup that he vowed that no Mountain West Conference school would ever darken the doorstep of his university again. Jennings' father mailed Hawaii newspaper clippings to CSU coach Tom Hilbert at the time to share a laugh. Now Jennings is leading a group with impish grins announcing "we're back." The 6-foot-1 junior was so determined to get her trip home, she had a career-high 16 blocks in the 3-1 victory over Kansas State last week in the second round of the NCAAs. "I don't know if Hawaii will take it out on us, but I'm really proud the Mountain West is showing everyone else we're a good conference," she said. With no lack of athletic pursuits in Honolulu, she took a liking to surfing and soccer before turning to volleyball. Hilbert, who recruited her for Idaho, said when he took over the CSU job before the 1998 season, "I always felt she was a player with a lot of potential. She improved her vertical jump about 3 1/2 inches. She's a lot stronger. She gained about 20 pounds of good weight. She was very skinny and not very strong. Her hitting velocity and her jump have gone up." Her parents belong to the Hawaii booster club. Members act as family hosts for visiting teams. Last week Gary and Terry Jennings hosted Colorado. Her father regularly provides scouting reports and said, "Hawaii should beat everyone out of the water." CSU first has to get past No. 2 seed Long Beach. "They won it all last year, but they lost one of their key players," Jennings said. "They are beatable. They are a really good team and know what's it's like to get to the finals."
|
|
