HONOLULU — The Hawaii Prep boys volleyball team was desperate for a wakeup call in its Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division II state quarterfinal match Thursday.
HONOLULU — The Hawaii Prep boys volleyball team was desperate for a wakeup call in its Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division II state quarterfinal match Thursday.
After splitting its first four games against Waimea, coach Sharon Peterson knew her team needed a change.
But the boys themselves, none of whom had ever won a state quarterfinal match, provided the much-needed spark before that fifth and deciding set.
As teenagers tend to do, they approached it light-heartedly, telling jokes in their three-minute break, figuring that the best way to play their game was to relax.
Their short-lived comedy worked, and fourth-seeded Ka Makani powered its way to a 25-17, 24-26, 25-17, 17-25, 15-8 victory in front of a rowdy crowd at Kaimuki High School in Honolulu.
“I’m really proud of the way they bounced back,” Peterson said. “I know they changed their thoughts, which we worked on. They went out with more energy (in the fifth set).”
The win catapults HPA (12-6) to the Division II semifinals, where they will face top-seeded and heavily favored Hawaii Baptist Academy Eagles (11-0), the reigning state champions and winners of three of the last four state titles.
The teams will compete for a state title game berth starting at 5 p.m. Friday at Kaimuki High School.
Thursday’s victory was Ka Makani’s first ever in a state quarterfinal match. In the past two years, HPA lost in four sets to seeded teams from the Oahu Interscholastic Association. But this season, riding the high-powered and balanced offense featuring Jevin Ching, Tyler Van Kirk and Keanu Yamamoto, HPA took that hard-earned step to the semifinals.
Facing an undersized team from Kauai, the Big Island Interscholastic Federation champs admittedly overlooked Waimea (12-2).
The Menehunes only started one player taller than 6-foot, so Ka Makani’s big front line — with the 6-3 Van Kirk, Ching, Jovan Crnic and setter Kainoa Tanoai, along with 6-1 Kamahao Paio — figured they could just blast their way to a victory.
“We realized that we really wanted to win because we want to be playing (Friday),” Ching said. “I think before that, we just expected to win easier. That’s kind of how we came into it.”
They didn’t count on Waimea’s star, Kailikea Schumacher-Lagundino, and the team’s scrappy defense.
Schumacher-Lagundino was dominating at times with a match-high 22 kills, many of which ended long rallies kept alive by the Menehunes scrambling digs.
That defense prevented a lot of HPA’s would-be kills, keeping the rallies alive and forcing the favorites to take more and more swings.
The frustration wore on HPA.
“They’re a really good, scrappy defense,” Yamamoto said. “They’re really aggressive. It’s hard because it feels like they take away a lot of their options with their defense.”
But they couldn’t take away Ching, who pounded down six kills in the fifth set and finished with a team-high 20.
Van Kirk finished with 18 kills, and Yamamoto added nine.
Hawaii Prep will face a much different team Friday in Hawaii Baptist, which features 6-6 Michael Fisher and 6-4 Chad Barretta, who are used to playing — and beating — some of the best teams in the state in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu.
“I think it’ll be fun,” Ching said. “I think we’ll play better because we’ll just go for it. We tend to play better when we play better teams. It’ll be fun.”
c Seabury Hall 3, Kohala 2: Rocky DeLyon piled up 24 kills and 11 digs, and sophomore Blake Rizzo had 13 kills and seven blocks, leading state tournament second seed Seabury Hall to a 26-24, 25-20, 27-29, 19-25, 15-7 victory over the BIIF runner-up Cowboys at Honolulu’s Kalani High.
Senior Travis Taylor added six kills, seven digs and four blocks for the Maui Interscholastic League Spartans (12-2), who will face Oahu Interscholastic Association champion McKinley (12-3) at 7 p.m. today in a Division II semifinal at Kaimuki.
D.J. Wong collected 30 kills, 15 digs and three aces for Kohala (12-6), which will face BIIF No. 3 seed Pahoa (9-10) at 7 p.m. today at Kalani in the seventh-place bracket semifinals.
Senior Popo Roxburgh added 11 kills, eight digs and four blocks, while senior Elias hood had 10 kills and four digs.
c McKinley def. Pahoa 3-2: Meng Yuan Wu had 15 kills and six blocks, and junior libero Harriz Navarro had 15 digs and an ace as the Oahu Interscholastic Association champion Tigers held off BIIF No. 3 seed Pahoa 23-25, 25-20, 25-18, 21-25, 15-13 at Kalani.
Jordan Aikau added seven kills for the Tigers (12-3), who will play Seabury Hall at 7 p.m. today in a Division II semifinal at Kaimuki.
Junior Jarrett Kamaka pounded 17 kills, and junior Nicklas Fisher collected 14 kills and 13 digs for Pahoa (9-10), which will face Kohala at 7 p.m. today at Kalani in the seventh-place bracket semifinals.
Division I
c Kamehameha-Hawaii 3, Kamehameha-Oahu 1: Sophomore Evan Enriques took over with 34 kills as Kamehameha-Hawaii beat Kamehameha-Oahu in 23-25, 25-23, 25-15, 25-20 to reach the semifinals.
Junior Kaipo Woolsey added eight kills, and senior Israel Trusdell posted seven kills and nine blocks at Oahu’s Farrington High School as the BIIF champions improved to 17-0. The third-seeded Warriors will face No. 2 Moanalua (16-0), the OIA champ, at 7 p.m. today at McKinley High for a berth in Saturday’s championship game.
Daniel Aina chipped in with 47 assists and four blocks, and DJ Grant-Johnson had four kills and four blocks to help Kamehameha
dethrone the defending state champions.
Kamehameha-Oahu (13-4), the runner-up from the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, got 16 kills from Savili Bartley and 13 each apiece from Kamuela Grugier-Hill and Cullen Mosher.
c Punahou 3, Waiakea 0: Tui Tuileta hammered 17 kills as the top-seeded Buffanblu swept beat the Warriors 25-13, 25-12, 25-16 in a Division I quarterfinal at McKinley High School.
For the BIIF runner-up Warriors (14-4), Mamane Namahoe had seven kills and five digs, and Dillon Rellez added four kills and four digs.
Waiakea faces fourth-seeded King Kekaulike (14-1), the Maui Interscholastic Federation champion, at 5 p.m. today in a fifth-place bracket semifinal at Farrington High.
Kupono Fey had eight digs and seven kills for Punahou (16-0). The Interscholastic League of Honolulu champion faces Kalaheo in a 5 p.m. semifinal today at McKinley.
West Hawaii Today’s Joe Ferraro and Stephens Media’s Matt Gerhart contributed to this report.