Nihipali Making Every Kill Count

The big match was just 20 minutes away, and Esperanza volleyball player Paul Nihipali was in a panic. His teammates looked tired, uninspired, a bit too blase. What were they tuned into here? CIF or the Weather Channel?

“C’mon you guys!” he screamed. “Get fired up!”

Hey, relax, they told him. Take a breather. Who filled your water bottle with espresso?

Had this been a dream, or perhaps an episode of “The Twilight Zone”-- now introducing, at setter, Rod Serling --Nihipali, a junior, might have felt better. But this was Friday’s Southern Section quarterfinals, as real as an opportunity could be.

In the four-year history of the Aztecs’ volleyball program, they had never been past the quarters. But in this 3-A match against Sherman Oaks Notre Dame, they had their chance.

Not just to make history, but to show all those Orange County beach boys a North County team could play, too.

In Nihipali’s case, there was another more personal reason. As a four-sport athlete (football, basketball, volleyball, track), student body officer (men’s athletic representative) and honor student (4.27 grade-point average), Nihipali, you might think, receives plenty of attention.

But a severe ankle injury during volleyball last season resulted in a dismal start to his junior year. In football, especially, he was playing a game of catch-up: Go to the trainer, catch up with the team. Go to practice, catch up with the plays. Go to the game, sit on the bench.

He played some--as a third-string wide receiver--and in basketball, a bit more. His highlight, he says, was dunking over the head of Loara’s 300-pound wonder Bryant Jackson. But it didn’t really get fun until he was fully healed.

Just in time for volleyball.

Now, Nihipali, a 6-foot-6 middle blocker, is prepared to make every kill count. In Friday’s match--yes, the Aztecs eventually exchanged their apathy for intensity--Nihipali had 14 kills, as did Brad Goldston, to lead Esperanza to a 3-1 victory.

Esperanza (15-2) will play Harvard Westlake, last year’s 3-A champion, in a semifinal match tonight at El Dorado High.

Because of his four-sport schedule, Nihipali hasn’t had time for club volleyball. He knows it would help his skills, and maybe turn him into a college prospect. At least, that’s what the club coaches tell him.

He also knows it’s true, at least in part. Next year, Nihipali says, he’ll probably drop either football, basketball or both to make way for club play.

Esperanza volleyball Coach Kurt Kersten says, in Nihipali’s case, four sports are fine with him. Nihipali, who didn’t play volleyball before high school, developed steadily, Kersten says. The only time he asks for trouble is when he mixes sports.

Volley-basketball, for example.

“Sometimes in the gym,” Kersten says, “I catch Paul out of the corner of my eye, seeing him go for a reverse slam. We don’t really want him doing that.”

The volleyball doesn’t like it.

While Kersten has Nihipali in his sights nearly every spring afternoon, track Coach Al Britt rarely gets a glimpse of his No. 1 high jumper. Not more than once a week, at least.

Nihipali says the only reason he went out for track was to help the team. Besides, he says, Britt lets him work jumping into his volleyball practice. Although he’s reached a best of 6-7, Nihipali--who placed fifth in the 3-A Division finals Saturday--knows his lack of practice really hurts him in such a technical event.

“You know how all the jumpers have their marks?” he says. “I just go, ‘OK, this looks good.’ ”

On the first day of track practice, Nihipali said he and Britt spent an hour and a half computing the mathematical formula to estimate his mark. A simple process--for the gods of math.

“It’s like you make a perpendicular bisector to the plane of the bar. Then you have this circle from where you want to take off. Then you take the radius from somewhere and make an arc,” Nihipali said laughing. “I guess I’m not into that fine-tuned stuff.”

At the section finals, Nihipali said the other jumpers kept asking him to analyze their techniques. He shrugged.

He overheard several talking about former Olympic jumpers Dwight Stones and Doug Nordquist. He’d never heard of them.

He noticed everyone was wearing special high jump shoes. Not him.

“It’s so boring, I can’t believe it,” he says. “Like at CIF, you just sit there, 45 minutes between each jump, waiting. It’s soooo slow.”

Maybe a scream might speed them up.