Iolani notches straight set win over Punahou to claim ILH D1 crown

Brien Ing | SL

For the first time since 2016, Iolani reached the top of the ILH Division I girls volleyball summit, claiming its third league title in school history with a 25-22, 25-21, 25-7 sweep over Punahou in front of a racuous crowd at Lower Gymnasium.

"For me, especially, I wouldn't want to be in this situation with any other team," said Iolani setter Maya Imoto-Eakin. "I love playing with these girls, and they're like really good. So I think when we work together we can do amazing things."

Mari Lawton and Callie Pieper registered 10 kills and 8 total blocks in the middle, and clearly disrupted the Buffanblu offensive flow, especially in a very surprising set three, where the Raiders jumped out to a sizeable margin and were never threatened.

Imoto-Eakin dished out 38 assists and added seven digs and four total blocks of her own, and the Raiders' pin hitters came up big as they have all season, with Senna Roberts-Navarro putting down 19 kills and Brooke Naniseni adding 10 more.

From the outset, the match looked as if it would go the way all four previous meetings have gone, nip and tuck, with closely contested sets throughout. That prevailed in sets one and two, where both games could have gone either way, but the Raiders seemed to find that extra gear in the waning points of each to assume a 2-0 lead.

The floodgates opened in the third set for the Raiders, who opened up an early lead and simply ran away with the set, with much of the points coming with Imoto-Eakin at the back line, as an already pumped up student section reached a crescendo.

"I think like in the past years like with COVID and everything it had to come from our bench. but now like the energy in the gym is like so loud and it just helps us maybe like focus more like on the game itself," said Lawton of the Raider Nation cheering section. "I mean we're all friends, we're all classmates, so um yeah they just make it a lot of fun."

Both teams will represent the Interscholastic League of Honolulu in the upcoming Division I state tournament.