Leilehua's Toma Savea puts a kill attempt past the Kalaheo block. Peter Caldwell | SL

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Kalaheo's Kainoa Peterson puts a kill attempt past the Leilehua block. Peter Caldwell | SL

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Leilehua's Dakota Soliai goes up for jump serve against Kalaheo. Peter Caldwell | SL

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Leilehua players celebrate after a four set win over Kalaheo. Peter Caldwell | SL

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ALIAMANU – It’s going to be the best of the east versus the best of the west in the winner’s bracket final.

Leilehua, the Oahu Interscholastic Association Red West champion, defeated Kalaheo in four sets, 25-19, 25-22, 27-25, 25-23, Tuesday night at Radford’s James Alegre Gymnasium. The Mules improve to 12-0 while the Mustangs drop to 11-2.

“We got the monkey of our back. Several times we’ve been in this position. Finally we got it out of our system,” Leilehua coach Ernest Balignasay said after the game. 

With its previous obstacle out of the way, Leilehua will have a chance to go toe-to-toe with one of the top teams in the state in Moanalua (13-0), the OIA Red East champion.

“This win is really big,” said Leilehua’s Toma Savea. “This season we had people doubting us like we weren’t going to make it this far. That was our goal to get past everyone else and all the criticism.”

Savea spearheaded the Mules’ attack with his match-high 16 kills. Max Aiono chipped in with nine kills. Those kills were all well earned with Kalaheo’s 6-foot-8 Luke Owens patrolling the front line.

“They’re good. They’re tough. They’re consistent. (They) got good height up there,” Balignasay said on Kalaheo.

Owens led the Mustangs with 12 kills and a match-high five blocks. Flanking Owens was junior outside hitter Nai’a Singlehurst with 10 kills.

After Kalaheo scored the first two points of the match, Leilehua went on a 6-0 run to take a four-point lead. The Mules extended their lead to eight on a Savea kill to make it 18-10. Leilehua continued to keep that eight-point lead until the score was 22-14. However, several errors kept Kalaheo around to make the first set last longer than it should have. Leilehua was eventually able to take the first set, 25-19, on an Aiono kill. 

“In the first set we had six errors. We normally don’t have that much,” said Balignasay. “Maybe because we were pumped up and (so) high, we lost control of ourselves (a bit).”

The second set turned out to be more challenging with both teams trading blows all throughout the set, neither team leading by more than four points at a time. Kalaheo held a 17-14 lead before Balignasay called timeout. The timeout was well timed as Leilehua closed out the second set with an 11-4 spurt to win it, 25-22.

Even though they trailed two sets to none, momentum slowly began to build up for the Mustangs. Kalaheo was able to avoid a sweep by winning the third set, 27-25. There were a total of 20 ties in the third set alone. 

“We got kind of tired during that game,” Savea said on losing the third set. 

The fourth and final set was just as entertaining as the previous two sets, going down to the wire with neither team leading by more than four points. Leilehua led 17-13 before giving up four straight to prompt a timeout. The final points were neck and neck before the Mules finally won out, 25-23, to take the match and remain undefeated.

“Even though we lost that (third) set, we came back to win the (final) set,” said Savea. “We just learned how to finish together.” 

Leilehua’s showdown with Moanalua is slated for Thursday at Farrington’s Kitamura Gymnasium. It won’t be easy for the Mules as Na Menehune has yet to drop a set this season.

“They’re the east champ, we’re the west champ. It should be a good match,” said Balignasay.