Moanalua's Jojo Kruize puts down a kill attempt against Kapoleu. Peter Caldwell | SL

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Moanalua players react after winning their school's first OIA girls volleyball title since 2007. Peter Caldwell | SL

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The way Kapolei had been playing as of late, Moanalua coach Alan Cabanting knew it would be just a matter of time until his team found itself in a dog fight Friday night.

Moanalua claimed its third Oahu Interscholastic Association girls volleyball title in dramatic fashion with a dramatic five-set win over Kapolei before a crowd of about 500 at McKinley's Student Council Gymnasium. The scores were 25-16, 25-20, 20-25, 23-25 and 15-13.

"It feels amazing," said Na Menehune outside hitter Jojo Kruize, who put down a match-high 20 kills. "We worked so hard and we've done so much to really push and fight for this."

Na Menehune improved to 14-0 with the win, which gave them their first league crown since 2007 and secured one of four top seeds and a first-round bye in the upcoming New City Nissan/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division I State Championships.

It didn't come easily. The Hurricanes, who dropped to 11-3 with the loss, entered the match as one of the hottest teams in the state, having won their last 10 contests. They dashed the championship hopes of Kahuku and Mililani — with three-set sweeps, no less — en route to Thursday's final.

After take the first two sets in controlling fashion, Moanalua sputtered late in game 3 — when it allowed the final six points of the set — and stumbled often in game 4 — when it trailed for most of the set, but came back to within 24-23 following a 7-1 run, only to lose 25-23.

"I think what happened (in games 3 and 4) was Kapolei started to serve a lot tougher and I think they started playing the way they've been playing the past couple of days," said Cabanting, who also coached Moanalua's boys to an OIA championship last year. "They got used to the way we were hitting and they adjusted well.It was great coaching on their part to adjust to a lot of the things that we were doing. We just need to take care of the pass."

The fifth set was all Kapolei to start. Shekinah Clarke put down back-to-back kills to give her team a 4-0 lead and a few points later, Savannah Baldomero's ace made it a 7-2 cushion.

However, Moanalua answered with a 7-1 run that was ignited by a Lia Gaogao kill. The run also included three consecutive kills from Kruize on the left side.

"Jojo was struggling with the matchup in the the third and fourth sets, so we flipped the rotation to start set 5 so that she was hitting against a smaller blocker," Cabanting explained. "Lia started off the rotation in the front row and Jojo went to the back row. Lia was still able to attack and then Jojo just went on fire — understanding that the smaller blocker was on her — and she just reeled off all the points that we needed."

Despite facing a 5-point deficit in a 15-point game, Cabanting didn't opt to use a timeout, although, he did get the benefit of a TV timeout trailing 8-7.

"We knew that once that setter got to the front row that we were going to be able to attack it, so we just needed to make sure that we settled in there and waited for the opportunity and just attack from there," Cabanting said.

Gaogao, who had three kills in final set and 16 for the match, said the players managed to calm their nerves during the frantic finish.

"I think during the last set when we were down by a lot we were kind of worried, but then we were motivated and we really wanted to win this," Gaogao said.

Kapolei took its last lead of the set at 13-12 following a Baldomero kill, however, Gaogao tied it with her shot down the left line and Baylei Furman gave her team match point with her sixth kill of the night. The Hurricanes were called for a double-contact violation to end the match.

"One of the things that I think we do well as a team is we adapt and adjust," Hurricanes' coach Naidah Gamurot said. "The first set they were just shellshocked because it was the first time that any of them have played in a championship, but we were slowly starting to adjust in the second set and then kind of got it figured out, but at the end, when it was 13-13 and it was anybody's game, we had a few unforced errors that we shouldn't have had and that's enough to end it."

Gamurot had high praise for Kruize and Gaogao.

"Those two are just automatic ball-killers — and we did do some adjustments to it — we tried to a couple of things and it would work temporarily, but then we had to go back to the old faithful, the standby, so we were able to stop them a couple of times and block them, but we needed to be able to do it consistently and they're just really good."

In addition to banner nights by Kruize and Gaogao, Moanalua also got solid contributions from Furman (4 blocks), Pume Nedlic (5 kills), Cassady Teixeira (4 kills, 5 blocks), Bryanne Yasui (5 aces) and Joy Kurosawa (4 aces).

Jayleen Abregana had 16 kills and Clarke 14 for Kapolei, which was seeking its second OIA championship and first in Division I.