San Bernardino County Sun

Quizon builds large reputation

By Bill Norris, Staff Writer

Friday, March 04, 2005 - Not many 14-year-olds would pick up and move, without their parents, 2,100 miles just three weeks before starting high school.

Seven years later, Emily Quizon wouldn't have had it any other way.

Quizon, of Chino Hills, is a junior at Middlebury College in Vermont, where she is the leading scorer for the defending NCAA Division III women's hockey national champions.

And as the Panthers head into this weekend's New England Small College Athletic Conference final four at top-seeded Bowdoin College in Maine, Quizon has cemented her presence as one of the Panthers' top players.

Not bad for the 5-foot Filipina who got interested in the sport after seeing the movie "The Mighty Ducks."

Quizon was 10 years old when she first saw the movie. She and older sister Kristina decided they wanted to skate just like the girls in the film. So their dad, Emmanuel, took the pair to Ontario Ice to get started.

But it didn't begin exactly the way they wanted it.

"My dad wanted us to know how to skate first before we tried to play," Quizon said. "So he enrolled us in figure skating."

But the figure skating lessons didn't last long.

"After about four months, it was starting to be a waste of time, because we'd look up, and she had stopped to watch the hockey players," Emmanuel said.

Quizon quickly moved into the hockey program at the rink, and was named a team captain after only one a season. She later moved to Disney ICE and helped her team win the Southern California Amateur Hockey Association Pee Wee Division title.

Involved in numerous athletic activities, including basketball, Quizon kept playing hockey. Eventually, she caught the eyes of coaches from across the country, including one from Culver Academy, a boarding prep school in Indiana.

"We started talking to people about the school," Emmanuel said. "She has an uncle who lives back east and he had a friend in town who had their kids go there. And they said that if you have an opportunity to send someone there, just to do it, because the school was that good."

Not that the decision was that easy. Emily had been playing that summer with the St. Lucy's summer league basketball team, and had been told she likely would make the varsity team her freshman year. Besides, there was the issue of distance.

"It was really hard for me and my wife," Emmanuel said. "We flew to Indiana with her to drop her off and check the place out.

"One thing that helped was we saw the school, and it made us feel a lot better. The school is a boarding school, and about 95percent of the students are boarded. So there are students there from different states and different countries.

"But on the way back from dropping her off, my wife was crying. I think it was the best thing in the end, because she matured way faster back there."

In the end, for Emily, the opportunity was too great to pass up.

"It worked out really well with the financial aid they were able to give us," she said. "My parents thought it was a great opportunity for me and that I should take advantage of it. An opportunity like that was not going to come too often, and that I should not pass it up."

Quizon not only excelled in hockey at the school, she also earned national honors in lacrosse. But the first few weeks away from home weren't easy.

"It was really different and hard for me," she said. "I didn't like it there for the first three months. But once we got into the season, and I got with my teammates, I started adjusting and fitting in."

As her high school career wore on, Quizon began attending hockey camps attended by college hockey coaches. But while her skills were evident, her size was something that may have been something that kept Division I coaches from recruiting her.

"She's a very good player," said Middlebury coach Bill Mandigo. "She sees the ice very well and has good hands. The biggest thing is that she's not very big.

"She's been told a lot that she's too small to play, but I think that she takes that as more of a challenge. She wants to prove herself out there."

Mandigo, the winningest women's coach in NCAA history, decided it was worth the chance to pursue Quizon. And that desire helped sway Quizon when they first met at a camp in Colorado.

"Bill saw me there and started talking to me, and I started hearing things about the school," she said. "That's when I started taking an interest.

"I'm pretty sure (my size turned off D1 coaches). I don't really remember too much. But this was the place that pursued me the most, and it's turned out to be the best place for me."

Her stats support that statement. She has posted 122 points (39 goals, 83 assists) in 79 career games at the school. She recently was named the NESCAC player of the year, posting 12 goals and 23 assists in 16 conference games. And her recent surpassing of 100 career points landed her in Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd."

"It all came pretty quickly," Quizon said of reaching the milestone. "It's funny because during the game, I got an assist and one my teammates came over and asked how many that was. And I had no idea what she was talking about. Then I realized what it was, and they made an announcement at the game. But I wasn't worried about it."

While her overall size may have limited her, Mandigo said there are other skills that she brings to the game that have helped her in the long run.

"She is very quick. She has real quick feet out there," he said. "The other thing she does really well, which might be a surprise because of her size, is she shoots the puck hard. She really knows how to use all of her body and snaps her hips all the way through.

"And she has tremendous balance. She can go down and she'll be right back up. I've never seen anyone at any level of hockey who goes down and gets back up as quick as she does."

Despite being more than 3,000 miles from home, Quizon has adapted well. She comes home to visit at least once a year, and her parents try to make three to four trips a year to see her play.

Even the weather hasn't bothered the Southern Californian too much.

"Sometimes it's miserable, but it's amazing the differences you see here," she said. "There's probably 5 inches of snow on the ground and people are complaining about it, but I'm walking through it and it just seems beautiful."

With one year left at Middlebury, where she is majoring in American Civilization, some may think that she would be planning for her life after graduation. But she is only worried about the playoff run.

"I'm just focused on what I'm doing right now," she said. "I don't want to get too far ahead of things."

But with the Winter Olympics coming next year, women's hockey may get another boost in the mainstream of sports. For Quizon, however, her chances at playing past Middlebury may be limited.

"It's hard to say (what's in her future)," Mandigo said. "She's definitely good enough to play in Division I, but a lot of people are turned off by her size. But by what she is able to do, she's talented enough to play at Division I and that's why I recruited her. She would probably have a role change, but she would do it."

And despite the praise, Quizon is happy where she ended up.

"There are other players out there that are small that do well," she said. "(U.S. national team player) Natalie Darwitz is an awesome player. She's only, like, 5-foot-2 and she has something like the most points in Division I hockey. A lot of people just look out to Division I schools, but Division III is where I want to be."