Attending college on the East Coast was no problem for Temple senior hitter Gabriella Matautia.
Not after spending six years in South Korea.
The daughter of parents serving in the Army, Matautia has gotten used to living in different places.
Born in Washington state, Matautia grew up in Hawaii before living in South Korea for six years.
There, she played volleyball from middle school until she moved back to Hawaii after her sophomore year of high school, getting quite a different view of how the game of volleyball is played.
"Hawaii’s a special place for volleyball, so volleyball (in South Korea) wasn’t elite as it is there, but it also wasn’t far from it," Matautia said. "I got to play in something called the Far East tournament, where we played schools from Hong Kong, Guam and Japan, and it was awesome. I got to watch a lot of different international teams play. It was awesome."
The only drawback to her experience in South Korea was that it left her as a relative unknown in local volleyball circles.
She returned to the islands in time to register for her junior year at Kapolei, but too late to play club volleyball.
She worked out and played for a year with the Hurricanes before transferring to Moanalua as a senior.
In her one year of club, a few colleges recruited her, including Temple, located in Pennsylvania.
Matautia visited the school over spring break as a senior, when she decided to become an Owl for the next four years.
"I had never been to (the East Coast) before, but I liked it," Matautia said. "It was a Division I program with great academics and I figured I could always go home after (college), so why not try it out?"
Matautia has helped breathe new life into a Temple volleyball program that wasn’t in good shape when she first arrived.
As a freshman, Matautia appeared in 21 matches for the Owls, who finished 4-25 overall and won just one match in Atlantic-10 play.
Temple improved to 8-20 during Matautia’s sophomore year before seeing its biggest jump in 2012.
Temple went 19-11 overall last year and was 8-6 in conference play, advancing to the semifinals of the conference tournament.
"It’s amazing where this program has gone in the past four years," Matautia said. "All the support we’re getting now is really amazing."
Matautia estimated they were lucky to have 20 fans in the gym for a home match during her freshman season.
This year, the school has upgraded the facilities at Temple, redoing the volleyball floor in the gym, adding bleachers, improving the weight room and renovating the athletic training room.
The team has an entirely new athletic staff and is getting bigger and bigger crowds with each home game.
The Owls are 10-4 overall and split their two-game road trip to open their first season of American Athletic Conference play.
Temple will now play its next five games at home, which should really show just how far the Owls have come in 2013.
"We definitely have the potential this season," Matautia said. "This is definitely a great conference for us to move into. The teams are bigger and more aggressive than the teams we’ve played before.
"Even splitting our first conference games on the road showed a lot. Now with these home games we have back to back, we can focus on what we really need to work on instead of thinking about traveling and catching up with schoolwork. It’ll be a big couple of weeks for us."
