Shortly after arrival in Hawaii, Lara Meccico was driving when her American passenger suggested she give way, in English. Meccico, who was still learning the language, didn’t hear “yield.” Instead, she heard “yell.”

So that’s what she did. She screamed at the operator of the motorcycle in the next lane.

“You know, in Italy, that’s normal for us,” she said recently.

The biker’s response was what you might expect: a raised middle finger. Fortunately the unintended bit of road rage ended without further incident.

Meccico, the No. 2 singles player on the Hawaii Pacific University women’s tennis team who finished the season ranked No. 3 nationally in NCAA Division II, can laugh about it now.

Meccico spoke before the Sharks’ final practice at the Ala Moana courts before the team headed to Surprise, Ariz., for the national championships. For the third year in a row, HPU made it to the semifinals before losing. Hawaii Pacific ended up 21-3 and ranked No. 4 in the nation.

The 11 people from 10 different countries who are the HPU women’s tennis players and coaches have also had a few communication mishaps along the way among themselves. But they say — in very good English — that the resulting positive chemistry and synergy has far outweighed any difficulties.

Many of the players hungered for a team experience in what is often a purely individual sport, especially in other countries.

“I traveled a lot during my teen years (as a professional in Italy) but never got to experience the culture,” said Meccico, who is 27. “I was always playing by myself. I wanted to be on a team.”

Meccico burned out and quit tennis for six years. But playing for HPU rekindled her love for the game. After graduation in the fall she is set to become an assistant coach at Baylor.

Lena Lutzier was the No. 1 player in all of Division II this year. She transferred to HPU before this season because the Armstrong State program in Savannah, Ga., for which she played closed down.

The continental United States was a big adjustment for her. She said it helped prepare her for Hawaii.

“It was not my dream (to play college tennis). I was very shy. My mom forced me,” said Lutzier, who spoke little English when she arrived in Georgia, but is fluent now.

Lutzier, an only child, misses her parents. Her mother has visited her, but her father is afraid to fly.

“Hawaii is so far away. They’re isolated from family and friends,” said head coach Lauren Conching, a Kaiser High graduate who is the only American among the coaching staff and players.

“When they first get here they get headaches because of all the learning in English, thinking in English,” added Conching, who was named Division II national coach of the year.

Battling homesickness

But the players have overcome that barrier, in extreme fashion. And since nearly all of them dealt with it, it made the team closer.

“The men’s team (also with many international players) is also very close. They don’t have anyone else. We tell them, ‘This is your family. You don’t get to choose your family.’

“They are also smart,” Conching said. “We are the top team for GPA at HPU with 3.65.”

That includes Leticia Gonzalez dos Santos. The senior from Brazil, who maintains a 4.00 GPA in communications studies, received the Elite 90 academic award Monday for having the highest cumulative GPA of those participating at the finals site for the NCAA championships.

“We as coaches can learn as much from them as they learn from us,” said Conching, noting that the staff has incorporated warm-up and practice routines suggested by players.

The building of this successful program of international players hasn’t always been smooth, the coach said.

Sometimes she gets to see the international players she recruits perform because they are transfers from other U.S. programs, sometimes because she vacations in Europe each year with her husband, HPU men’s coach Henrik Bode, who is from Germany. But some players come sight unseen.

Also, it’s never a guarantee that players from different countries and cultures will mesh.

“You don’t get to sit down with them, so you are kind of rolling the dice,” Conching said. “And sometimes they do have some ideas and deep rivalries with other countries. Sometimes it’s over soccer.”

She said one of the biggest challenges is paperwork — and for many countries, that is in the literal sense because required documents are often not available online.

“They have to get all their documents translated into English,” Conching said. “Once we were trying to bring in a girl from China, and that was very difficult.”

Another player, from Bulgaria, never made it to HPU. She was sent back home by United States customs on her way to Hawaii, because on a previous stay in the U.S. she had started a business, Conching said.

“You never know,” she said. “Even when you think you have someone you don’t know until you see them.”

Work visa problems

You can even lose someone after they’ve arrived. That was the case for Darron Larsen, an assistant coach with the University of Hawaii women’s basketball team from New Zealand. He was forced to leave the U.S. early last season because his work visa expired and he was not granted an extension.

“There’s no method to the madness,” UH head coach Laura Beeman said. “Others have had visas renewed and some have them revoked.”

Beeman said that for Larsen to return to the UH staff would require going through the employment process from the beginning. Even then there would be no guarantee that the government would approve Larsen’s return to the U.S.

“I stay in touch with him, and he and his wife (Toni) are awesome people,” Beeman said. “It may take changing of the process, but I hope to work with him again.”

Ryan Dubbledam, also from New Zealand, was the team’s video coordinator and then interim assistant when Larsen was forced to leave. He faces the same problem, with a May 17 deadline to leave the country.

Manoa has had better fortune with international athletes recently than with coaches. Junior shortstop Maaki Yamazaki from Japan has played so well in his first season as a Rainbow Warrior that some observers think he might be picked this spring in the Major League Baseball draft.

Heading into play Friday, Yamazaki led the team with a .323 batting average, and his OPS (on base plus slugging) of .807 was second. He has also played well defensively. If he has a weakness, it’s baserunning; Yamazaki was 2-for-7 in stolen base attempts, and was thrown out at third trying to stretch a double with two outs in a recent game.

“Sometimes he’s not so good on the bases, but he might be our best player,” UH coach Mike Trapasso said. “He’s a smart kid and he’s adapted so well to the American baseball culture.”

Like running back Genta Ito on the football team, according to school records Yamazaki is the first UH player in his sport from Japan. They were among 58 international student-athletes at Manoa on 2017-18 team rosters.

“International student athletes are a positive force in our department and on campus,” UH athletic director David Matlin said. “The cultural exchange in the classroom and on the field of play are invaluable learning opportunities.”

Yamazaki recruited UH

Trapasso said UH didn’t recruit Yamazaki. It was the other way around.

Trapasso was out of town when Yamazaki contacted then-UH assistant Rusty McNamara, who worked him out. McNamara called Trapasso and told him about “a skinny kid from Tokyo who just showed up, and is pretty good,” Trapasso recalled.

Yamazaki’s parents, Keiji and Tomoko, were thrilled that their son decided to transfer to UH. They are alumni of Kapiolani Community College. Keiji enrolled in 1988 and Tomoko soon after.

“My dad really wanted to learn English,” Yamazaki said. “They lived here about five years and said Hawaii is their favorite place.”

And it’s become Yamazaki’s favorite place to play baseball. At his college in Japan, he was on a 180-player team. Those who weren’t among the 25 suiting up for a particular game would practice instead. Practices were often 10 to 12 hours long, Yamazaki said.

“I like the freedom in American baseball,” he said, noting that in Japan coaches emphasize one way to do things, while American coaches are more impressed by results than process.

“We got him engaged in our culture, for sure,” second baseman Dustin Demeter said. “He’s a great presence to have around and he can absolutely play baseball.”

As the leadoff batter, one of Yamazaki’s responsibilities is to tell the next hitters coming up what kind of pitches to expect. It’s something he does well because his English has vastly improved.

“When he first got here he could kind of communicate with us, but it was tough. But hanging around with us he’s picked (English) up because he’s a smart kid,” Demeter said of Yamazaki, who was named the athletic program’s newcomer of the year at UH’s scholar-athlete celebration event this month.

Former athletic director Jim Donovan and football coach Greg McMackin went to Japan a few years ago to promote UH sports. But Ito and Yamazaki found their way to Manoa on their own.

Maybe they’re pioneers.

“We’ve been talking with (Yamazaki) about guys he knows,” Trapasso said. “If they’re all like him, we’ll take a team full of them.”