Pia Lagrito, a senior and four-year veteran of E.J. King's volleyball team, travels to Korea with the Cobras to play against Osan and Daegu, four days past her 17th birthday. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
URUMA, Okinawa – Pia Lagrito turned 17 on Tuesday. The senior and four-year E.J. King volleyball team veteran said she could not have imagined as a birthday present going to Korea this weekend to face Osan and Daegu.
“We are all so excited to be able to play the Korea teams for the first time,” Lagrito said in an online interview Wednesday. “But we’re there to play our game and show them what E.J. King does best, which is play hard.”
The Cobras will face Yokota – the team that beat King in last October’s Far East D-II final – in addition to the Warriors and host Cougars in a day-long volleyball jamboree at Osan’s Pride Gymnasium.
Across the street on the rooftop courts above the school’s four-deck parking lot, King’s tennis team will take on Daegu and Osan as well.
Saturday’s tennis begins at 9 a.m. and the volleyball at 10 a.m., the latter starting at the same time as a Korea-wide cross country meet, beginning and ending on Osan’s campus.
The inter-district competitions are one of a handful that got the go-ahead during last April’s DODEA-Pacific athletics directors conference at Yokota. Most of the ventures are self-funded by the teams themselves.
King’s tennis and volleyball coaches say they couldn’t be happier about seeing less-than-familiar faces on the field of play.
“It’s great that we get to see Osan and Daegu before we go to Far East,” Cobras tennis coach McKinzy Best said. The Far East tournament is scheduled for Oct. 16-19 at Matthew C. Perry.
The Cobras have seen all other D-II opposition in Japan. “Now that we’re playing these teams, we get to see who is who, and where we can put our people to score the most points” in Far East.
It’s also a good gauge for the Warriors and Cougars to see where they stand, especially against Best’s daughters, seniors Moa and Miu, who finished 1-2 in Far East singles and won the Far East doubles last year.
“It’s like, ‘We have the championships coming in; we have to step our game,’” Best said. “Because we’ll be bringing our ‘A’ game. You don’t know who’s who until you play them. This is a great opportunity.”
Likewise, coach Ricky Andrew and the Cobras volleyball team brings something of a pedigree with them as well. They lost to the Panthers in four sets in last October’s D-II final and are 15-0 this season entering the weekend.
“It’s a great opportunity for the girls to see the Korea teams and for them to see us before Far East,” Andrew said. The D-II Far East returns to Yokota and is scheduled for Oct. 17-19. “We’re excited. We really feel fortunate to have this chance.”
Also this weekend, Zama’s volleyball team travels to Okinawa to face a pair of Division I opponents, Kadena and Kubasaki.
It had been hoped that Korea’s golf teams, Osan, Daegu and Humphreys, could travel to Okinawa to face the Panthers and Dragons, but that fell through, Daegu golf coach Kathryn Brashers said.
Last weekend, Kubasaki’s tennis team flew to Korea to play against Humphreys, but weekend-long rains washed that out. So the teams convened in Humphreys’ gym and played indoor tennis, using pickleball nets.
Friday on the football field, two games in each division could go a long way toward settling seeding in the DODEA-Pacific Far East playoffs Oct. 18-19.
Kadena visits Kubasaki, with the top D-I seed on the line, while American School In Japan travels to Humphreys with the winner getting a foot in the door for the fourth and final spot. Both kickoffs are at 6 p.m. Friday.
In D-II on Friday, Zama (2-1 overall, 2-0 D-II) hosts winless Matthew C. Perry, with the forecast calling for heavy rain. Up north, Robert D. Edgren and Yokota, each 2-1, do battle with the top two seeds on the line. Kickoff is 6 p.m. for the Zama game and 7 p.m. for the Edgren game.
