Kicking, Hitting, It’s All the Same to This Player : College volleyball: Ring moves smoothly from high school soccer stardom to similar status in a different sport at Pierce.

Without knowing it, Jason Ring might have started a trend with the Pierce College men’s volleyball team.

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Ring, a 6-foot-3, 177-pound redshirt freshman outside hitter and middle blocker, is one of the best attackers for the Brahmas. With teammate Gabe Higa, who much like Ring joined the squad without any experience in organized volleyball, he is part of a powerful offensive tandem that has spearheaded the team’s run toward a second state title in three seasons.

The Brahmas (19-0), who breezed to the Western State Conference championship with an 18-0 record, will face Grossmont (15-4) tonight at 7:30 in a semifinal match of the four-team state tournament at Santa Barbara City College. If Pierce wins, it will play in the final Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

For Ring, 19, it would be an accomplishment he couldn’t have reasonably imagined.

When he enrolled at Pierce two years ago and tried out for the volleyball team, he had tinkered with the sport only recreationally. He played high school soccer, and was a four-year varsity standout in Oregon.

But Ring, who was looking for a college to attend in Southern California, knew about the successful Pierce volleyball program and approached Coach Ken Stanley about playing.

His father, Frank, and uncle, Rob Ring, played volleyball at Pierce and he wanted to keep the tradition alive.

At the time, the Brahmas were fresh off a state title in 1992 and loaded with talent, but Stanley took him on. “I came down here looking for schools and talked to Coach Stanley and decided to stay,” said Ring, a defenseman on the soccer team at Redmond High in Redmond, Ore., near Bend. “I played (volleyball) a little bit on the grass. Last year was the only time I had ever been coached and this year is the only time I’ve played in a match.”

He has adjusted to his new sport quickly, much like Higa, who joined the Brahmas this season after giving up a basketball career that took him from Quartz Hill High to UC Irvine to Irvine Valley. Last Friday, in a sweep of Long Beach City that secured a perfect regular-season record for the Brahmas, Ring had 17 kills.

“At first, he was goofy-footed and I told him, ‘If you want to play, you’ll have to change your approach (when preparing to spike the ball).’ He changed it in a week,” Stanley said of Ring.

“I didn’t know he would be quite as good as he is. I think he could go on and play big-time volleyball. If he learns to pass, he’ll play at a high level.”

Ring says he loves playing for the Brahmas but his desire to attend Pierce has hit him in the pocket as hard as one of his spikes. He works part-time at a sporting-goods store to make ends meet but sometimes those ends seem far apart.

“The hardest thing this year has been money,” said Ring, who pays $1,800 per semester for out-of-state tuition and lives with teammate Mark Smith in an apartment in Northridge. “It’s real tight. I work, my parents try to help out and I try to get financial aid when I can, but it’s tough.”

But Ring, who wants to become a chiropractor, says he hasn’t considered leaving Pierce because of the economic hardships.

“I love it,” Ring said. “As far as volleyball goes, it’s great. It’s worth it to me.”