SEQUIM — Three European exchange students are playing basketball for the Sequim Wolves this winter with the sport serving as an avenue to learn more about their host country’s culture — and in the process, more about themselves on and off the court.
Pilar Aliseda of Spain, Irene Stello of Italy and Karin Borikova of Slovakia all turned up for basketball tryouts in November. Aliseda, who plays for her Colegio Menesiano Madrid team and has played with much the same group of teammates since she was elementary-school age, made the Sequim varsity.
Stello, who played basketball as part of physical education classes back home, and Borikova, who admitted to being pretty new to the sport, both made the Wolves’ JV squad.
Aliseda, 15, is a 5-foot-8 guard/forward from the Spanish capital of Madrid. She decided to make the leap to America after a friend returned with fun memories from a year’s study in Michigan.
The trio could only pick the country they wanted to study in, they didn’t get the opportunity to choose where exactly they would be placed.
But being sent to Sequim was a positive for Aliseda, who has an uncle living in Seattle. Her introduction to the United States was softened a bit.
“When I came to the USA my sister was visiting my uncle in Seattle,” Aliseda said.
She played volleyball in the fall for the Wolves and produced a perfect 4.0 grade point average during the school’s first term.
“She’s made some jokes about American school being easier than Spanish school,” Wolves coach Larry Brown said.
Aliseda has been able to see more than the Emerald City so far, traveling with the varsity to play in a tournament at Seaside, Ore., and visiting the San Juan Islands last Saturday for a game against Friday Harbor.
She said that after playing with the same group of girls on her club team for years, learning how to play with new teammates and adapt to the American brand of basketball has been an adjustment.
“It’s weird playing because I’ve played on the same team since I was young,” Aliseda said. “I’ve always known the girls I was on the team with. I know where to pass them the ball, what they like to do and how they play. Here I have had to learn.”
Her coach said she’s done very well in learning a new system and a new style of play.
“She’s done a great job,” Brown said. “I think the main thing with her has been is learning the differences between American basketball and European basketball. There are rules in European ball that just don’t mesh with the American rules, so that’s been a process for her.
“We’ve talked a lot about — she has this one, two stop. It’s not a jump stop. The American jump stop is rarely called a travel and the foreign jump stop is a travel every time [here]. That’s been one of the things we’ve been trying to work through and it’s been difficult for her and that’s understandable, she’s been doing that since was five or six years old. Some games it has been tough for her, some referees will really stick to it, some will be OK with it, and that’s something she’s really been learning and working on.”
Aliseda comes off the bench for the Wolves, moving her feet well and guarding tough opponents on the defensive end while also providing an occasional burst of offense.
“As far as getting along with the girls she started off a little quiet, a little shy, but she’s really provided a lot of personality to the team,” Brown said. “She’s a fun girl to be around, the other players all like her. She can provide a spark for us offensively off the bench and she’s learning our game, how we play, pretty quickly.”
Aliseda even said she’d like to see additional court time.
“Some minutes, not all that much,” she said. “I would like to play more.”
She was impressed by the size of the crowd at the Sequim-Port Angeles rivalry games.
“It’s a different system back home, your friends might come to a game, but only a championship final would get a big crowd like that,” Aliseda said.
And she’s enjoyed how hard her host parents, Karla and Michael McFarlen, have gone to make her feel better about being so far from home.
“Being separate from my family, at Christmas it was hard. But my host family tried to make it special for me. They are always trying to make me feel good, make me not feel homesick.”
She said she’s looking forward to a spring break trip to Mexico to visit Cabo San Lucas before she returns home after school ends in June.
Stello also has enjoyed playing with the team, even if some American behaviors strike her as strange.
“The boys who wear the flip flops and shorts in the cold weather,” Stello said with a laugh. “They don’t know its cold?”
Stello also did well in school during the first term with a 3.88 GPA. Borikova, who said she is shy, also earned academic honors with a 3.45 GPA.
Borikova was happy to visit Disneyland during her time here and wants to return to attend college in the USA.
Bolstered by improved language skills and with new American friends and family to visit, all three said they would like to return as adults.
