Johns Hopkins University Blue Jays

Cedar Rapid, Idaho-News Editor

Congratulations to Hana Hou Class of 2017 Nicole Hada and her team the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays on winning the NCAA Division III National Title this past weekend against the reigning national champions the Emory Eagles. The eagles were in the process of their fifth trip to the final four since 2010. A proud accomplishment for Hawaii and the Hana Hou Volleyball Club. In the first season of club volleyball for Hana Hou ( 2016 -2017) and her last season of club volleyball she was under the guidence of coach Lynden Keala.

Johns Hopkins becomes just the third team in Division III history to be crowned undefeated National Champions ( Washington University , 40-0, 1992 ; Central ( IA) , 41-0 1999).

By the numbers

First National Title
JHU vs Emory 25-23,25-22,25-18
Season: 35-0 ( undefeated)
Roster Size : 10 players

Odds and Ends

Matt Troy and Staff 1st year returning back to Johns Hopkins from William and Mary

Team (in every definition of the word)

Emotional win propels Hopkins to National Title Match

Blue Jays knock off Trinity in four to set up one final match for perfection

Cedar Rapids, IA – Matt Troy  walked into the post-game locker room as usual expecting to find a celebration. Why not? The Blue Jay volleyball team (34-0) had just punched its ticket to the program's first-ever National Championship match.
 
What he walked into was far from what he envisioned.
 
See, for a team that doesn't have enough players to practice six-on-six – one injury, or one sickness – could be all it takes to derail a fairytale season. And on this Friday night, nearly everything that could go wrong, did go wrong for Troy's group.
 
But as they have done all season, the Blue Jays continued to fight.
 
It started at the opening of the match. A fluke lineup miscue forced Hopkins into a rotation error to dig themselves into an early hole against Trinity (Tx.). For most teams, this may cause some early nerves or uneasiness. Not this group. This impressionable bunch of Blue Jays laughed it off,

regrouped, and returned to business as usual.
 
Exchanging blow-for-blow with the Tigers in a back-and-forth opening game, Hopkins scored on three consecutive blocks to close out the first set 25-22, extending its streak to 39-consecutive frames without dropping a set.
 
From there, in a blink of an eye, the Jays had dominated their way to a 25-16 second-set victory and were firmly in control with a 12-6 advantage in the third.
 
Then it happened.
 
Diving after a ball in front of the Blue Jay bench, junior libero Nicole Hada let out a cry that would flip the match, and potentially Hopkins' entire season, on its head.
 
Hada was helped off the court with an apparent shoulder injury – the same injury she suffered in the season opener that sidelined her for the next 15 matches – and the Blue Jays turned to junior Morgan Wu to replace her. The same Morgan Wu that had been dealing with flu-like symptoms since arriving in Iowa on Tuesday.
 
With momentum on the side of the Tigers, Trinity would claw its way back to hand Hopkins its first dropped set in nearly seven weeks.
 
We all know where this story is headed next.
 
Wu ditched her white top for a fresh black one to fill in as the new libero to open the fourth set, and all of a sudden the Blue Jays once again found their form. Troy turned to his All-American duo of Louisa Kishton and Simone Bliss to reignite the Jays attack, and boy did they deliver.
 
The pair of outsides combined for 13 kills in the fourth frame, and Lauren Anthony chipped in a pair of her match-high five aces to lead Hopkins to a commanding 25-17 victory.
 
This leads us back to the post-game locker room. On a night that was a mini-microcosm of the entire season, these Blue Jays weren't thinking about their remarkable 34th-straight victory, nor did they grasp the historical significance of becoming the first Johns Hopkins women's team to advance to a Division III National Championship game.
 
Instead there were tears. Not tears of joy, but tears of knowing that 10% of their team was absent from that post-game locker room.
 
Troy looked around the room and debated whether to perform the team's normal ritual of going one-by-one and having each player give their thoughts on the match.
 
"It's tradition, we can't get rid of it now," said Troy.
 
With nearly every player fighting back tears, the thoughts were widespread. Praise for Wu, who could barely muster any words afterwards; shout outs for Bliss, Kishton, Hannah Korslund and Natalie Aston, the veterans who have been the teams leaders all season long; recognition for Annelisa O'Neal and Rachel DePencier for keeping up the team's morale; and big kudos for Anthony, who turned in one of her best performances of the season.
 
But one message was uniform – tomorrow's championship match would be for Nicole.
 
All season long, the motto has been "1-0". Now, Hopkins will have one final opportunity to go "1-0". One last chance to finish off a perfect season, and one more time to show the volleyball world what a group of ten young women can do when they have each other's backs.

Presently in the volleyball world, the recruitment process has become a part-time job for athletes, parents, coaches, and club staff. It takes time and resources to record and break down video to make highlight reels, tally statistics, and then devise a plan to send this information to college coaches in an organized package. At the same time, high school and club volleyball programs are becoming more sophisticated in searching for an advantage in training and against competitors.

Hudl, a sports video analysis and software company, is revolutionizing the way coaches and athletes prepare for and stay ahead of the competition and addresses the needs of the growing sport. What began as a football product, Hudl has now developed programs specific to ten unique sports, including volleyball. Its top priority is to give athletes feedback and tools to help them improve as a player every day.

Glenn Hada, a Hudl user and director of Hana Hou Volleyball Club in Hawaii, said, “Our club cannot function without Hudl. In volleyball, we have a ball, a net, and a court. Hudl is the other component of volleyball that we need. We use Hudl to do our highlights and for coaches to use it as a tool to improve player development.”

Hudl has been giving athletes a platform to shoot and display video for various uses. Once a club or team has purchased the program, there is no limit to who may have access to the the account. Not only does this mean that multiple users can view the video simultaneously on a computer, phone, or tablet, but it also means that only one parent now has to record the match and upload it to Hudl. Gone are the days that there are ten video cameras set up behind the same court to get the same film.

Once the film is uploaded, users can go into the interface to take statistics, view technique for player development, scout opponents, and make notes within the program. Players can also use Hudl to choose their best clips to showcase individual highlight reels for recruiting, social sharing, and to feature at end of the year functions.

Within the Hudl application, a player can add music to and edit the video, and use highlighting features such as circling which player a scout should be watching. Within the team subscription, the club or high school program has a website and individuals also have their own page to send off to collegiate coaches in an easy-to-view package. Hada calls Hudl’s user websites “a concise, professional representation of our players.”

For Hada, being in the middle of the Pacific presents challenges to his athletes who want to play in college. Luckily, though, the current landscape of college recruiting almost requires athletes to send video before a coach watches a player live, due to strained time and financial resources.

Hada said, “We’re not like California and Texas, for example. We don’t have college coaches who can come into our gym to watch us. We only travel twice to the mainland, so Hudl is instrumental in our development. All of our players are recruited, 100-percent because of Hudl.”

Additionally, club directors such as Hada at Hana Hou see the benefit of Hudl because he doesn’t have the ability to staff full-time recruiting personnel. Because many athletes come to Hada’s club to compete as well as be seen and recruited, a service such as Hudl is a simple and effective resource to allow players to find a good fit in college, and for Hana Hou to retain club players year after year.

Hudl has taken its services to another level with Hudl Assist, an add-on to the Hudl subscription. Hudl Assist removes the time it takes to upload video from a device, break down statistics, and search for specific film bites. That “part-time job” that coaches once had to analyze film, on top of perhaps his or her day job and coaching, has a solution with Hudl Assist.

In Hudl Assist, you can send your match or opponent’s video to Hudl with a click of a button. Then, Hudl breaks it down statistically (based on the NCAA volleyball required statistics) for both sides of the net. Within 12-24 hours, it’s ready to view. The statistics then can be filtered by player, rotation, team, set, and match. Coaches and players can see trend charts, the box score, overall statistics, and set goals within the Hudl Assist program.

Dan Mader, Associate Club Director at VCNebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska where Hudl is headquartered, mainly uses Hudl for scouting, statistics, and player development.

Mader said, “To us, it makes using film way more efficient. We use Hudl Assist and we’re able to go through scenarios, skills, and rotations, and it makes it more efficient to say, ‘Here’s the area we struggled in and why,’ instead of flipping through film for a long time.”

Mader and other coaches at VCN use Hudl Assist to tag players when they see a valuable teaching moment on film. When this happens, the player will get a message directly to their phone. Mader also uses it to bring lessons to life and to assign homework to his players off the court.  

He said, “I’ll give them homework such as, ‘Look at five of your hitting errors and tell me what you need to change.’ And, it’s all outside of the gym on their time. They can do on their phone or at home… that’s where they are usually anyway, on their phone.”

With the breakdown of statistics, an attacker, for example, can now filter a match to view their own plays including kills and hitting errors, while setters can see which plays are successful in each rotation, and liberos can watch opponent hitting tendencies. Mader notes that it’s been proven that kids succeed more when they take the initiative and teach themselves, rather than being told what to do.

The benefit for scouting may be geared more for high school and college programs who face teams multiple times each year, but Mader sees the benefit for club, too. 

He said, “We use Hudl Assist against some local teams we play often. In general, I use it to look for themes, like if we play a team that’s really fast, or more physical than us. Maybe we’ve played a team already that reminds me of them and I can remember what worked against them. At the end of the season, it’s useful because we’ll see teams again.”

In the five years Hana Hou has been using Hudl, Hada says it has progressively gotten better and the support is “unmatched” with staff following up with him constantly, performing webinars, and sending season reports.

Hada said, “They set you up with everything. They just don’t supply you the finger to press the ‘Play’ button.”

Not only is the product useful for development and recruitment as a juniors player, but it translates to a skill all players will have to learn at the collegiate level because at most programs, scouting occurs before each match. Since Hudl’s recent acquisition of VolleyMetrics, it has expanded its video and statistical programs from just the high school and club levels, to now being used at the collegiate level as well. Think of Hudl as getting a head-start.

“Hopefully in the future, it’s all seamless for the athletes,” said Mader. “When they learn how to watch film when they’re young, they don’t have to relearn anything. So, in college, the learning curve is faster.”

The cost of Hudl and Hudl Assist has not been a barrier to Mader or Hada because of the payoff. While both clubs subscribe as a program, users can also use Hudl per match in a pay-as-you-go format.

Hada said, “If I spend a certain amount for about 30 matches and all players get recruited, what is the return on investment? Really, really high.”

Hana Hou Volleyball Club was started on   May 3, 2016 .    Six weeks later   our  club was  selected  as media story of 2016 AAU Junior National Championships

HAWAII SETTER DANIELLA MIRANDA-JOHNSON SIGNS WITH BUCS

Women's Volleyball | Wed, Apr. 1, 2020 at 4:15 PM

Park University Gilbert Head Volleyball Coach Clay Webb has announced the signing of setter Daniella Miranda-Johnson from Kailua, Hawaii to a letter of intent to study and play volleyball for the Buccaneers in the 2020-21 school year.

Miranda-Johnson is no stranger to success as she helmed an offense at Le Jardin Academy that won back-to-back state championships, lost in the title match going for the three-peat and then after moving up to the next largest division, still managed to reach the quarterfinals.  Altogether, the Bulldogs won 76 matches over her four seasons of varsity play.

Miranda-Johnson was recognized on Sept. 17, 2018 as the MaxPreps/AVCA National Player of the Week.  She also made the Hawaiian Division II all-stars team her last two seasons.

Miranda-Johnson also played basketball and participated in canoe paddling.

Miranda-Johnson plans to major in business and would like to work in an athletics office and help to manage the business side of athletics once she has graduated.

Mehana Ma'a - Punahou Class of 2018

Nicole Hada - Punahou Class of 2017

Lincoln, Nebraska – News Editor

    Hana Hou Volleyball club lands in Lincoln, Nebraska!! This years  2018 HUDL Week ran from June 4th to June 8th 2018. Club Director for Hana Hou Volleyball Club Glenn was invited to be the guest speaker for volleyball among the Hudlies that returned from around the world at their annual retreat. Hoping foreign language was permitted ( da pidgin) the director set on the path to work and explain to the audience how HUDL has had a profound effect on recruiting players from the islands. In a hi tech world where there can be a strong disconnect between developer and end user, this opportunity provided a chance to bridge the gap and explain the rewards that this wonderful software has had on club volleyball and athletics throughout the world. The functionality of the software has revolutionized the way coaches and athletes prepare for and stay ahead of the game. Hudl now offers the tools to edit and share video, interact with stats, and create quality highlight reels for entertainment and recruiting purposes.

     For Hana Hou Volleyball Club this priceless software combined with our excellent coaches provides the winning formula for moving our student athletes to the next level. Among more than 160,000 active teams and 4.3 million unique users, the club is blessed that our voices and opinions in the 50th state was valued and offered to be shared with one of the fastest growing companies in America.

    The addition this year of HUDL Assist to Hana Hou Volleyball Club provided a professional presentation with stats and videos to potential college coaches and the results was evident by the complete recruitment of all our student athletes.

    In an audience where  the nation’s best and brightest were seated, there was validation that advanced technology was being breed in Lincoln, Nebraska. The city is now becoming incubators for hi-tech and becoming the “ silicon prairie”. A company called HUDL that not only supplies software but provides “ opportunities” .  These opportunities have stretched far  from Nebraska to Hawaii to a club in the middle of the pacific called Hana Hou.

Est May 2016 . Hana Hou Volleyball Club was formed by two parents whose previous club collapsed and needed to provide a opportunity to showcase their 17u old players in what would be the last year at summer travel prior to graduation.  In six weeks the club went from zero to being featured as the media story of the 2016 AAU Junior National Championships in Orlando Florida