UC IRVINE NOTEBOOK / ROBYN NORWOOD : Popi Puts Pizazz in Volleyball

Popi Edwards brought a certain exuberance to UC Irvine when she arrived at Viento dorm in Mesa Court on campus. She’d hardly moved in before she was passing out flyers, urging her new neighbors to come to her first volleyball match.

“I was saying, ‘Y’all are gonna come, aren’t you?’ � she said. “Then half the dorm--well, about 10 people--showed up and made signs and everything. They’re so supportive. As far as my dorm, it’s a great dorm. They’re great people.�

Edwards is a freshman from Long Beach Poly High School, and her new friends from the dorm quickly found out she is a standout. She already is starting for the volleyball team, and despite a position change, she is leading the team in kills with 123 after 13 matches.

“She’s just a great athlete and an outstanding jumper,� Irvine Coach Mike Puritz said.

The jumping ability that is important in volleyball is measured in a drill in which the player takes an approach as if for a spike, then leaps and reaches up to touch the highest spot possible with the fingertips.

“She’s pretty close to 10 feet,� Puritz said. “I think eventually she’ll be over 10 feet.�

For Edwards, who is 5 feet 9, that’s saying something.

Edwards was a middle blocker in high school and club volleyball. But against the highly ranked college opponents Irvine faces, that wouldn’t do.

“Normally, middle blockers are a little bigger,� Puritz said. “In our conference, there are middle blockers who are 6-2 and can jump like Popi.�

So Puritz moved Edwards to left outside hitter. She’s adjusted well.

“I wasn’t sure how long it would take her to make the transition from middle blocker to the outside,� Puritz said. “The approach is different. The types of sets you get are different. I knew eventually she would make the adjustment. How quickly, I didn’t know.�

Edwards says the hitting “comes natural,� but the blocking is harder.

“I was used to going straight up,� she said. “Now I have to use my left hand, which is my weaker hand.�

Puritz once thought he might end up sharing Edwards with the track program. At Long Beach Poly, she was a long jumper and ran sprints and relays. She gave up track her senior year to focus on volleyball.

“That was a slight mistake,� she said. “The track team won the league title, the Southern Section title and State.�

Her other focus in college is going to be premed studies. Along with a partial volleyball scholarship, Edwards earned a partial academic scholarship from Irvine, and was also chosen for a scholarship from her high school.

She wants to follow in the footsteps of her father, Gary Edwards, a graduate of UC Irvine’s medical school who practices in La Palma.

“Neurosurgery looks interesting,� she said.

Maybe she can make that look easy, too.

The volleyball team, 7-6 and 2-4 in the Big West Conference, broke an 11-game conference road losing streak with two victories against Utah State in Logan last weekend. Irvine hadn’t beaten a Big West opponent on the road since Nov. 2, 1990.

Daniel Lyton, a Riverside City College basketball player who said last week he plans to sign with Irvine, plays for Coach Bob Schermerhorn, who was an Irvine assistant under former coach Bill Mulligan.

“I think that’s a good signing for Coach Baker,� Schermerhorn said. “Lyton is a similar player to Kevin Magee.�

That’s either an exaggeration or quite a compliment. Magee was a two-time All-American at Irvine and a second-round NBA draft pick in 1982.

Lyton was a highly recruited high school player out of Detroit’s Cooley High. But after getting entangled in a recruiting controversy that eventually landed Missouri on two years probation and later transferring to the University of Detroit, he has played only one season of community college basketball.

A 6-foot-7, 255-pound power forward, Lyton averaged 15 points and six rebounds last season. He’ll have two seasons under his belt when he reaches Irvine--but only one season of eligibility remaining.

The prestigious, invitation-only basketball camp for high school players staged by Sonny Vaccaro at the Bren Center this summer already appears to be paying off for Irvine on the recruiting trail.

The Anteaters reportedly are among three main contenders for Ed Elisma, a 6-10 player from LaSalle Academy in New York City who is considered one of the better big men in the country.

The other main schools in the running are said to be Seton Hall and Georgia Tech, teams that have reached the Final Four in recent years. That’s company Irvine might not have been able to keep if Elisma hadn’t spent a week enjoying the Irvine campus and surrounding community during Vaccaro’s ABCD camp, which had no official affiliation with the school.

Mike Gerakos, who lost his job as baseball coach when Irvine dropped its program last spring, was one of three finalists for the head coaching job at Washington. That job would be considered a promotion from the Irvine position he lost. But Washington named one of its assistant coaches, Ken Knutson, to the position last week.

Anteater Notes

The women’s cross-country team, which competes in the Stanford Invitational on Saturday, is ranked 14th in the nation this week. Villanova, the defending NCAA champion, is ranked No. 1.. . . Pablo Yrizar scored four goals in back-to-back matches last week for the water polo team (2-5). Yrizar’s scoring helped make up for the play of Steve Gill, who has a sprained thumb and did not score in either match. . . . Goalkeeper Amee Chapman of the women’s soccer team (4-5-2) has four shutouts.