1996 PREP PREVIEW / GIRLS’ VOLLEYBALL : Dana Hills Looks to Bari to Set Everyone Up for Success

Sometimes, coaches make decisions in the preseason that seem bound to fall into one of two realms: travesty or genius. The armchair analysts will take sides. There will be no middle ground.

Such was the decision to make Jami Bari, one of the best hitters in the county last year for Dana Hills, into a setter.

Last year’s setter, Richelle Danet, graduated after last season.

That meant Dana Hills Coach Dave Hollaway needed a replacement. Checking his roster, he realized every player had exactly the same amount of experience at the position--none.

So he chose his best athlete.

“Lucky me,” Bari said with a laugh.

Hollaway is confident.

“I think she is going to do it very easily. She is an amazing athlete. It is just a matter of getting the [practice],” he said. “She has great hands. She takes to it really naturally. I think she’ll surprise some people at how good she actually is.”

Hollaway even sees his decision as somewhat benevolent.

“My opinion is that she could have been a strong outside hitter but she can be a great setter,” he said.

Bari attended a setters’ camp at Long Beach State this summer.

Bari blended in with the rest of the setters the entire week. Then, one evening during a water break, she called to a friend to set her the ball and she went up for a spike.

The boom caused people to stop in their tracks.

“I hadn’t hit all summer. I surprised myself actually,” she said.

But Bari soon got back to the serious business of setting.

“Right now, it’s kind of frustrating because I’m still in the learning process,” she said. “Once I become a better setter, it might be kind of fun because you’re involved in every play.”

Michael Soylular, who coaches Bari at the Laguna Beach Volleyball Club, said she is not far from becoming a great setter.

“[For Dana Hills] she is setting out of necessity, but during my club season, even in the practices, she is not so foreign to setting. I think she is going to shock a lot of people,” Soylular said. “One of the key factors for being a great setter is blocking ability and she is a great blocker.”

Bari led her Laguna Beach Volleyball Club under-16 age group team to the final of the prestigious, 358-team Davis tournament in July. Another member of that team was Michelle Chambers, who played for Santa Margarita last year before transferring to Dana Hills.

“One of the things that I like about Jami is, I think she can tolerate pain,” Soylular said. “She plays with bad ankles, [a] bad back, bad shoulders.”

Bari is the kind of player who is unselfish almost to a fault.

“Last year, we set her so many balls [and] she never asked for it. She never was the one screaming for the ball, which I kind of would like a little bit of,” Hollaway said. “I was always the one telling everybody to give it to her.”

Bari averaged 23 kills for Dana Hills last season, including a South Coast League record 48 in a loss to Mater Dei.

Dana Hills will run a two-setter offense this season, meaning someone else will help Bari with some of the setting, probably April Schleede or Leslie Punelli. The addition of the 5-foot-11 Chambers at outside hitter will boost the Dolphins when Bari is setting.

Bari’s prowess on the volleyball court is due largely to her natural athleticism, perhaps handed down from her father, Steve, a quarterback at Kansas State from 1971-74.

Bari ran track her freshman year and expects to participate again this spring. She also played soccer her freshman and sophomore years. Bari expects to play with the girls’ varsity basketball team this winter.

Bari played in the U.S. Junior Olympic Beach Volleyball Championships at Manhattan Beach last month with Punelli and the pair won a silver medal.

A week later, Bari paired with Chambers for a California Beach Volleyball Assn. tournament at Long Beach. They won the Women’s Unrated division, playing against some women who were 25 years older than them.

Bari said the pro beach game is something that might be in her future. And the U.S. national team isn’t all that much of a longshot, either.

“I kind of like indoor better. It’s a faster game,” she said.

But Bari isn’t thinking too much about her future in the sport right now--at least not further than a Southern Section title.