OIA Girls Volleyball
Moanalua sweeps past Kahuku to second straight crown


  



Thu, Oct 22, 2015 @ McKinley [ 7:00 pm ]


FINAL  1   2   3   4   5      
KAH (14-4) 18 20 13 - - 0
MOA (16-1) 25 25 25 - - 3

Jojo Kruize had 13 kills with eight digs in a sweep of Kahuku Thursday night as Moanalua retained its Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I girls volleyball crown in sweeping fashion at McKinley's Student Council Gymnasium.

The scores were 25-18, 25-20 and 25-13.

Na Menehune (14-0) also got seven kills apiece from Arendia Ruiter and Katy Ehnstrom and Emily Dulaney added six kills with six digs. Lindsey Ng posted 12 digs with two aces and Hula Crisostomo contributed five kills and three aces.

"Honestly, the whole team stepped up tonight, just as they have been doing every game, but really everyone was hungry, everyone wanted it," said Kruize, who also had one of her team's four blocks. "As a captain, I was so proud of my team and how everybody was contributing."

Moanalua, the lone remaining undefeated Division I team on Oahu, won its fourth OIA championship, marking the first time a team repeated since Kahuku won three straight D1 titles from 2008 to 2010.

"It feels so good because we want to go all the way this year and hopefully this will help us in taking the title," said Kruize, who had more than half (seven) of her kills in game three.

Na Menehune, who have dropped just three sets all year, will also have a bye in the first round of next week's New City Nissan/Hawaii High School Athletic Association State Championships.

"It's very satisfying," Moanalua coach Alan Cabanting said. "It gives the girls a little more rest and it allows us to see a preview of the teams we haven't seen yet."

Moanalua's diversified offensive attack was a result of solid passing from the back row in the serve-receive game.

"Coach Alan told us some adjustments to make with them and everybody just believed in ourselves and believed in how we can play and we just executed the adjustments," Kruize said.

Setter Emree Sato and Dulaney went to Ehnstrom and fellow middle Keila Williams early and often, opening things up for Kruize, Ruiter on the outsides.

"That definitely helps (because) with Kahuku, they're big, they're physical, their middles can do a lot of things and so because they were forced to stay with both of our middles pretty much, they isolated a lot of our offense when we needed to go to the outside," Cabanting said. "It kept them guessing as to where we were going, both on the front side and on the back side of our attack."

Cabanting's squad also never quite allowed the Red Raiders to find a rhythm offensively via a tough serving game. Na Menehune had five aces and committed just one service error for the match.

"As the sets progressed they got a little more comfortable and got a little more confident with their serves and they attacked it and that's what we've been working on in practice there," Cabanting said.

Game one was tied at 14 before four consecutive Red Raider errors led to a 18-14 Menes' lead. Kahuku got to within 20-18, but Moanalua closed out the set with a 5-0 run.

Katy Ehnstrom had a pair of kills early in game two to help Moanalua get out to a 7-1 lead. It stretched to 20-12 later on an ace by Ng and Kahuku could cut it the deficit to no less than four points the rest of the way.

"I think that we really played as a team and we stayed together and we had really good defense, scrambled to make plays," said Ehnstrom, a senior middle. "We prepared really hard for it."

Another 5-0 Menes' run — early in game three — forced Kahuku coach Mounia Tachibana to call her first timeout with her team trailing, 10-3.

The Red Raiders were never able to recover and Moanalua ended up pulling with the game and match in commanding fashion.

"I think the girls kind of got overwhelmed. Like I said before, they're not used to all of this, but we're just going to work harder because it's not over to be honest," Tachibana said. "That was just to make our road a little easier, but it's okay because they're willing to fight. I think it's a good loss for them because now this is a real championship situation for them, that they haven't been in a while, and now they know how it feels."

Lauolive Tonga had 11 kills and Carey Williams added nine kills and 12 digs for the Red Raiders (12-2), who saw their five-match winning streak stopped.

Kahuku was seeking its league-leading 11th OIA title and first since 2012. Its only other loss this year was also against Moanalua, in a regular-season sweep on Sept. 28.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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