JAPANESE IMPORT IS DRIVEN; EXCHANGE STUDENT YOSHIDA IMPRESSES AT AVC WITH WORK ETHIC.Byline: John Sanders John Sanders is the name of
Antelope Valley College Antelope Valley College is a comprehensive community college located in Lancaster, California, USA. It is operated by the Antelope Valley Community College District, with a primary service area of 1,945 square miles covering portions of Los Angeles and Kern counties. women's basketball Women's basketball is one of the few games which developed in tandem with men's. It became popular, spreading from the east coast of the United States to the west coast, in large part via women's colleges. player Michiko Yoshida had a huge task ahead of her when she entered the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. from Japan for the second time in her life. Yoshida had to get used to playing basketball American style. ``In my country we follow the international rules and sometimes I get confused out here,'' Yoshida said. ``I think it's getting a little bit better, though.'' Almost 10 years ago, Yoshida, now 28, visited the United States as an exchange student. While in Lancaster she stayed with her host family for a month before going back to Tokorozawachuo, Japan. Now Yoshida is back, and Marauders head coach Jackie Lott couldn't be more pleased. ``I think she (Yoshida) has one of the best work ethics on the team,'' Lott said. ``She gets here early and she leaves late. She lacks the experience, but she's a great athlete and she's really growing as a player and a person.'' Yoshida is not putting up big numbers. Her playing time has been limited, partly because she is playing behind one of the best shooting guards in the state. Nonetheless, Yoshida is a real student of the game. At the beginning of the season, for example, Lott began to notice a suspicious-looking notebook lying around the gym after practice. One day she opened it and found that all AVC's plays had been neatly recorded inside. Lott figured someone was trying to scout the Marauders or steal their plays, but it turned out to be Yoshida's. She had written down all of AVC's plays so that she could become a better player and learn the game. ``She wants to be the best that she can be and she literally has a notebook studying basketball like she studies everything else,'' Lott said. And don't disregard Yoshida's work ethic on and off the court. A typical day for Yoshida over this past Christmas break consisted of plyometrics Plyometrics is a type of exercise that utilizes a rapid eccentric movement, followed by a short amortization phase, and then followed by an explosive concentric movement, which enables the synergistic muscles to engage in the myotatic-stretch reflex during the stretch-shortening in the pool, weight lifting weight lifting, international sport, also a training technique for athletes in other sports. From the earliest times men have lifted weights as a test of strength. , the team's practice, not to mention riding her bicycle to and from practice, approximately 10 miles round-trip. Pretty impressive. ``My main goal when I step on the floor is defense,'' Yoshida said. ``I really don't feel I need to score that much and I think my best quality is my defense.'' Life for Yoshida is not all about basketball. Following her stint at AVC (1) (Advanced Video Coding) The video compression techniques used in the H.264 standard, jointly developed by ISO and the ITU-T. See H.264. (2) (Audio Visual C , where she is majoring in education and American sign language American Sign Language n. The primary sign language used by deaf and hearing-impaired people in the United States and Canada. American Sign Language (ASL), n. , Yoshida hopes to go back to Japan to continue playing basketball on her club team as well as learning sign language. CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO Antelope Valley guard Michiko Yoshida, right, an exchange student from Japan, takes pride in playing stellar defense. Jeff Goldwater / Daily News |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion