Kaile Halvorsen hopes one day to work in a hospital. Colton Cowell is glad to be out of one.

Other than that difference, the pair have similarities.

Both were scholar athletes in high school and college. Both had their own obstacles to overcome. Both are now and will always be NCAA champions.

This spring, Hawaii had four who reached the summit of an NCAA championship.

Two — Jocelyn Alo (Campbell, Oklahoma softball) and Jhenna Gabriel (Maryknoll, Texas women’s volleyball) — were highlighted in my previous column on July 5.

Halvorsen (Kaiser, Santa Clara women’s soccer) and Cowell (King Kekaulike, Hawaii men’s volleyball) have similar messages to deliver to Hawaii’s youth about perseverance, dedication and self-belief.

“It seems like a big challenge to get to D-I soccer and not even just getting there but competing at the level of the national championship. Never in a million years would I have thought I would be there,” said Halvorsen, whose Broncos beat the Florida State Seminoles on penalty kicks (4-1) in the College Cup on May 17.

“I would say to the kids here growing up that to just believe and that anything is possible and just because it’s seems so far out of reach, it’s really not. … just keep working, never give up and always believe in yourself.”

Halvorsen, a rising senior forward, played in every match this choppy season for Santa Clara. She was on the pitch to close out the half and then played the final 50-plus minutes of regulation and two 10-minute overtime periods during the final.

With soccer usually played in the fall but moved to the spring of 2021, Halvorsen’s journey was unusual and uncertain.

“This year obviously, there’s been so many challenges and difficulties with COVID and nobody, not even me, would have expected how it turned out,” she said.

The team was in isolation in the fall when soccer is usually held. The sport was postponed to spring and Halvorsen said the team again went into a bubble.

“We weren’t allowed to see anybody else outside of our team so that was definitely hard, just traveling across the country, to North Carolina, to be in another bubble to compete in the NCAA Tournament. It definitely was very really challenging and no one would have predicted how the outcome was, but I’m super proud and I’m still lost for words, it’s been almost two months.”

A West Coast Conference All-Academic honorable mention in 2019, Halvorsen returned to Santa Clara last week to begin conditioning and training. School starts Sept. 20. She plans to graduate in the spring and is thinking about starting her master’s program. Her long-range goal is to go to physicians’ assistance school.

With COVID and its variant still making the rounds, the medical field could be perilous.

“It’s definitely scary,” she said. “My mom is an ICU nurse at Queen’s so I’ve seen it first hand, especially with the pandemic and how it’s affected our medical professional.”

If it’s a hospital that Halvorsen ends up working, she said she’ll be “happy to work there.”

Cowell, meanwhile, was thrilled to be out of a hospital gown.

The athletically dynamic and gregarious Cowell underwent a full rotator cuff repair and labral repair in mid-June. The same-day procedure was supposed to take just over an hour but lasted 4½ hours. “I really wanted to get out of there,” he said. He’s out of a sling now and his range of motion has improved.

“I can get it to almost 90 degrees on a good day. On a not-so-good day, I’m right around 75-80. Just trying to take it day by day.”

The surgery derailed, for the moment, his future plans.

“I was intending to play professionally in France until I found out that the severity of my muscle tears needed to be addressed,” said Cowell.

Cowell, who will take this next year to rehab and recuperate before training for the 2022 pro season, said he played the final two seasons with those injuries.

Even with an ailing shoulder, Cowell excelled. He was a first team All-Big West selection and a second team All-American this past season. He also was UH’s recipient for the 2020 Big West Scholar Athlete of the Year award.

In the NCAA semifinals, he had 10 kills, four digs, one assist, one ace and one block assist in a sweep of UC Santa Barbara. He had seven kills, three aces, three digs, two block assists and one assist in the sweep of BYU that brought UH its first undisputed men’s NCAA team title.

What made Cowell’s season so satisfying was his journey to get to the mountaintop.

He was a walk-on in 2015, worked on his passing and strength while redshirting his second year, found court time as a serving specialist in his third year. With his game ascending, he earned a scholarship in his fourth year, during which time he broke into the starting lineup as a powerful but undersized outside hitter.

“All that was capped off with a national championship, which I’m proudly going to represent for the rest of my life.“And I’m very, very blessed and grateful for that to be a part of my legacy,” Cowell said.

Cowell’s growth wasn’t only evident in his skill set but his physicality.

He entered college at 147 pounds, but through diet and constant training, went up to 196 in 2020 before settling into a comfortable playing weight of between 188 and 192 pounds. All that power in a 6-foot-1 frame, short for an outside hitter.

“I’m typically the shortest player on the court, except for if we’re playing another team with a smaller libero,” he said. “I’m always the shortest player on our side of the net. Even (UH libero) Gage (Worsley) is taller than I am.”

But being undersized only fueled Cowell’s fierce underdog mentality.

“I’ve always liked viewing myself as an underdog,” he said. “That’s where I typically feel that I thrive.”

To Cowell, that mindset is woven into the fabric of Hawaii culture.

“I think it is the Hawaii mentality. The state of Hawaii is somewhat of a small talent pool compared to the rest of the United States and a lot of student-athletes coming out of Hawaii they enter college athletics with a chip on their shoulder and something to prove.

“I feel that that’s why you see so many incredible stories with Hawaii athletes … there’s something about student-athletes and kids from Hawaii, where they’re always willing to work hard. And they’re always willing to make necessary sacrifices to put themselves in positions to be successful.”

With a lot of downtime as he recovers, Cowell has had time to reflect on his six-year odyssey.

“My message would be good things take time and it’s really important to practice patience,” he said. “Believing in yourself goes a long way. Always practice patience with yourself, practice compassion, practice understanding, and just recognize that good things take time.”

———

Full interviews on hawaiiprepworld.com

Reach Curtis Murayama at cmurayama@staradvertiser.com