Mililani's Nathaniel Johnson rifles a kill past Waipahu's Khrysster Ipalari in the second set of an OIA West matchup. Peter Caldwell | SL

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MILILANI — Once it was able to settle down, the Mililani boys volleyball team started to pull away.

The Trojans defeated visiting Waipahu in straight sets Thursday night for a key 25-18, 25-12, Oahu Interscholastic Association Western Division win to remain unbeaten. 

Mililani improved to 5-0 in league play with the victory while handing the Marauders (4-1) their first loss of the season.

"Coming in tonight, we knew we had a pretty big team that we had to face," said junior outside hitter Nathaniel Johnson. "We just told ourselves to play our game, get in the mindset and our coaches just told us ‘this is our match, we own this match, this is our gym,' and we just played from there." 

Both teams went back-and-forth in the first set, but that was mostly the result of the Trojans' mistakes. Mililani committed a combined 13 errors and violations to gift Waipahu most of its points in the opening game.

The Trojans were able to whittle that number down to six in the second set and were able to win the frame by a larger margin.

"Having a home crowd, we were kind of nervous, but that's no excuse for errors," said Johnson. "After the first set coach came up to us and said ‘we have to minimize our errors. That's way too many points we let up.' So we came back next set and held them to under 15." 

In spite of the Trojans' errors, it was a bounce back performance for the team after fending off Waianae (4-1) Tuesday in the team's first three-set match of the season. 

"I think we played well," said Mililani first-year coach Trenton Niino. "I think we made a lot of adjustments from our Waianae game and we had a really hard practice (Wednesday) picking on those errors and the boys really did implement it in tonight's game."

With sophomore setter Chance Guillermo running the offense, the Trojans were able to dissect the Waipahu defense with a multifaceted attack. 

Six different hitters registered kills, led by Johnson's match-high eight kills and four digs. Sila Fuiava and Troy Spacek each added six kills, Samuel Palompo had four more and Brandon Rabang and Andrew Valladares also registered a point.

"That's attest to Chance's setting," said Niino. "He spread the ball out really well tonight and he got all the hitters involved."

Guillermo, who was a reserve middle as a freshman, also got involved in the attack with frequent dump attempts, finishing with three kills.

The Trojans were also able to key on the Marauders' main hitters and put up a block to either force a point or slow down a kill attempt for an easier pass.

"We really emphasized blocking last practice," said Guillermo. "We also practiced our digging so I think it really helped us in the game and during the longer rallies."

On the other side of the net, Waipahu didn't have much offense other than returning multi-year varsity player Jeminae Solomua and sophomore Bradley Tacata, who was pulled up from the junior varsity during the team's postseason run a season ago.

"Oh, we thought we had an offense, against Mililani I guess not," Waipahu coach Julna Pasicaran admitted. "Everybody is brand new except those two guys."

Pasicaran said that despite the score, the match was a good learning experience for her young team.

"We're kind of expecting that, but we just got to tell everybody to step up. They're just nervous, this is new team. They're still learning." 

Solomua had six kills and six digs to lead the Marauders in the loss.