Hawaii Baptist players raise the Division II trophy after a sweep of Pahoa. Eugene Tanner | SL

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Hawaii Baptist puts up a triple block against Pahoa. Eugene Tanner | SL

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Pahoa's Joseph Lefiti puts up a set against Hawaii Baptist. Eugene Tanner | SL

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Hawaii Baptist's Michael Fisher stretches out to place a ball over the Pahoa block. Eugene Tanner | SL

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Michael Fisher could not have scripted it any better.

Led by his match-high 27 kills, Hawaii Baptist defeated Pahoa in straight sets to win its third straight New City Nissan/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division II Boys Volleyball State Championship at Neal S. Blaisdell Arena Saturday.

The Eagles capped a perfect 15-0 season in which they only dropped one game en route to its fifth state title in six seasons under coach Teoni Obrey. HBA entered the eight-team tournament as the top overall seed and Interscholastic League of Honolulu champion.

“It doesn't get old at all,” said Obrey. “It's a great experience just to work with these young men and to watch them get better.”

The Eagles hit just .178 for the match, but outblocked the Daggers, eight to four, in team blocks. Fisher, a senior outside hitter, took 64 swings with eight errors for a .297 percentage and had nine digs. Micah Aweau, one of just three other players to register a kill for the Eagles, put away 11 kills.

Obrey, however, said the sweep was not indicative of just tough the match was.

“They had the best defense that we faced all year,” Obrey said of the Big Island Interscholastic Federation titlist Daggers, who completed their season with a 12-6 record. “The ball just kept coming back to us, they forced us to make plays. That was a really good team, they had a couple of really tough servers and they're really athletic boys. They really played their hearts out and hats off to them, they really pushed us.”

Nicklas Fisher led Pahoa with 10 kills and 10 digs and Matt Colobong added 12 digs. The Daggers hit just .157 for the match, including a .024 mark in the opening set.

“We couldn't give (HBA) anything, and we ended up fighting, but we never got the breaks,” Pahoa coach Wayne Bidal said. “Crucial things that never went our way and we had some bad judgment calls, but you cannot blame the refs – the kids let it get into their head – so a lot of things went wrong, but all in all, I'm proud of this team. They went down fighting, they never gave the game away.”

The Eagles took the lead for good in game one with a 5-0 run to turn a 10-9 deficit into a 14-10 lead. A 4-0 HBA run later was countered by a 3-0 Pahoa run to pull it within 22-20, however, HBA scored the final three points to win game one, 25-20.

Game two played out similiarly to the first, with the Eagles holding a 22-17 lead, only to see the Daggers pull to within 22-20. However, HBA got a kill by Fisher on a tip from the right side, following by a Aweau kill and an ace by Fisher to close out the set, 25-20.

The Eagles built a 10-5 lead in set three, but the Daggers rallied to take a 20-19 lead. Fisher answered for HBA with a kill on a pike set followed by a thunder slam from the left side and an ace by Joshua Kishaba to make it a two-point Eagles' lead.

Nicklas Fisher tied it a little later at 23-all on a kill from the left side, but Michael Fisher ended the match with back-to-back kills to seal it, 25-23.

Obrey said he was very concerned about Pahoa's athleticism entering the match.

“We were hoping that we would be able to counter their athleticism,” Obrey said. “We felt that athletically they would be far superior than we are, so we had to make it more of a skilled and disciplined game.”

Michael Fisher agreed, saying he felt the Eagles could counter with discipline.

“They're a good team, they're really scrappy and we always struggle with teams that are really athletic,” Fisher said. “They're way more athletic than we were, but we really relied on our discipline and adjusting to the matchups well and that's what got us the victory.”

Fisher, who had 27 kills and seven aces in a quarterfinal win over Hawaii Prep Thursday and 17 kills in a semifinal win over Kauai Friday, was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

“It's just a great way to finish my senior year,” Michael Fisher said. “As high school is coming to a close, we really wanted to do it for the seniors and let the underclassmen see how it's supposed to be done and just go out there and play HBA volleyball.”

Bidal said his team had difficulty adjusting to the high sets from Eagles' setter BJ Hosaka to the 6-foot-7 Fisher on the outsides.

“He's so tall we had a hard time adjusting to his sets, because we're used to playing a faster game on the Big Island,” Bidal said. “So we had to adjust the block to delay the block – to wait and then block – and we don't play that type of ball.”

Hosaka finished with 37 assists for HBA, while Joseph Lefiti led Pahoa with 31 assists.

Pahoa, the No. 3 seed in the tournament, reached the final by sweeping past Campbell in its quarterfinal Thursday and topping Seabury Hall in four sets in a semifinal Friday.

New City Nissan/HHSAA Boys Volleyball State Championship Division II All-Tournament Team

Nicklas Fisher, Pahoa

Micah Aweau, Hawaii Baptist

Blake Rizzo, Seabury Hall

Max DeLyon Seabury Hall

Joseph Lefiti,  Pahoa

Grant Basquez, Kauai

Most Outstanding Player: Michael Fisher, Hawaii Baptist