Hawaii is a hotbed for volleyball talent, and Washington University has taken full advantage.

Sophomore libero Hua Katagiri and recently graduated Kelly Pang (class of 2013), the volleyball team’s all-time digs leader, played for the same volleyball club in Hawaii under the same coach and went to high schools only 15 minutes away from each other.

Danny Reise | WUSTL Photos

Sophomore libero Hua Katagiri makes a dig on Sept. 24 against Westminister College. Katagiri leads the team with 526 digs and has recorded 4.65 digs per set this season.

Katagiri hails from Kane’ohe, Hawaii, which is a town incorporated into the city of Honolulu on the north side of O’ahu Island. She was a three-year varsity player at Kamehameha-Kapalama High School and helped lead her team to a state championship her sophomore year.

Katagiri always knew collegiate volleyball was in her future. What convinced her to attend Wash. U. was a conversation she had with Pang.

“She only had positive things to say about the school and it was the best option,” Katagiri said. “It had great academics, a great volleyball team and when I visited, the team was very welcoming.”

Last season, Katagiri led the team with 547 digs to place ninth on the Bears’ single-season record board and become the first freshman to lead the team in digs since Pang set the single-season record with 702 digs in 2009.

In her first year, Katagiri started alongside fellow freshmen in middle hitter Caroline Dupont and outside hitter Rexi Sheredy, where she learned to establish a louder presence on the court.

“There were also a lot of other freshmen who saw the court, and I think we worked together really well. As the season progressed, they encouraged me to be louder and take more of a leadership role,” Katagiri said.

In her sophomore year, Katagiri has shown no signs of slowing down. The libero has upped her digs per set from 4.41 to 4.65 and already has posted 10 matches of 20 digs or more. With 526 digs and at least seven games to go in the regular season, she is poised to jump even higher in the record book.

Although Katagiri might seem unlikely to reach Pang’s 2,520 career digs, she can still join the exclusive 2,000-career-digs club. As of this season, only Pang and Colleen Winter (class of 2004) have eclipsed that mark. With her current pace of over 500 digs a season, Katagiri is on pace to surpass that milestone by the end of her senior year.

Bears first-year head coach Vanessa Walby was able to watch Pang play as an opponent during her time as the University of Chicago’s head coach, and she sees a few resemblances between Pang and Katagiri.

“They are both very aggressive and defensive-minded players,” Walby said. “Skill-wise, fundamental-wise and defensive-mentality-wise, they are very similar and they’ve been trained extremely well.”

Walby highlights Katagiri’s consistency, both in digs and off the serve, as a stabilizing presence for the entire team.

“Ball control is big when it comes to playing the game of volleyball, and if you can’t pass the ball on the serve receive and you can’t play defense to get the ball up to your setter, you can’t run an offense to score points,” Walby said. “[Katagiri] has a lot of control over the backcourt, and I let her have control because I think she handles it well. Our ball control, with her and Rexi [Sheredy] back there, is fantastic compared to a lot of other schools we play.”

Katagiri also provides that calming presence with her demeanor on the court.

“She has a very quiet personality off the court, but on the court she’s very loud and very steady,” Walby said. “She brings and provides a very calming atmosphere for her teammates around her, and I think it helps with our consistency on our team with defense. They know exactly what they are going to get out of Hua [Katagiri] every game, so it’s easy for kids to play around her all the time.”

While digs often take a backseat role to kills on the highlight reel, Katagiri takes pride in her backcourt defense.

“It’s really cool when I get a good dig and I can see my teammates [get a kill],” Katagiri said. “It’s equally gratifying to see that I helped get a kill.”