Hawaiian Electric Game of the Week
Buffanblu, Raiders will meet for D1 state crown


 



SALT LAKE — The top two teams in the ScoringLive/Hawaiian Electric Boys Volleyball Power Rankings will face off Saturday night for all the marbles.

Interscholastic League of Honolulu foes Iolani and Punahou will face off for a sixth time this season when they take the court at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center Arena in the title match of the New City Nissan Division I State Championships Saturday night.

Both teams advanced to the final after semifinal wins Friday night. The Raiders cruised past Kalaheo in straight sets, while the Buffanblu rallied after losing the opening game against Moanalua to pull out the five-set victory.

Iolani, which is riding a 10-match win streak after a 3-4 start to the season — including a pair of losses to Punahou — is the top seed in the 12-team tournament after capturing its first ILH title since 2003 with a four-set win over Punahou on Apr. 23. It ended a string of 14 consecutive league crowns for the Buffanblu.

History, however, is of no relevance to these Raiders.

"I think those are great facts for after the season, but these boys I don't think concern themselves too much with that kind of stuff," Iolani coach Jordan Inafuku said. "It's more like our last match to play with one another and their shot at the goal that they set many months ago, so I think that's more important for them."

Iolani has won its last three meetings against Punahou, all of which came in a six-day span late last month. It swept Hilo in Thursday's quarterfinal round after enjoying a first round bye.

Meanwhile, Punahou will be playing its fourth match in six days. It swept past Castle in Monday's opening round before another sweep Thursday against third-seeded Kamehameha-Hawaii.

Punahou coach Rick Tune said Friday's semifinal win over Moanalua — at Moanalua, in front of a raucous, mostly pro-Na Menehune crowd — was just what his team needed.

"It took us finally learning how to play in a very competitive match. We've been talking about it all season. We've been talking about how God gives you the same opportunities to learn the same lesson until you learn ‘em and I think early in the season we'd get passive in that moment. I think that was the first time where I've seen us in a tough situation be the aggressor and I'm just proud of them," Tune said. "They learned their lesson tonight, we'll see if it carries over tomorrow, but this is exactly what we wanted to prep us for that match tomorrow."

While the Raiders will be seeking their fourth state title and first since 2008, the Buffanblu will be trying for their eighth consecutive championship and 37th in program history.

"It's going to be a war; It always is a war when we play that team. They're well coached, they know their roles well and they execute them well," said Tune, who has nine state crowns to his credit. "We'll see what happens. It's going to be two great teams going head-to-head for the state title, which is I think, what Hawaii deserves."

Saturday's championship final will be preceded by the D2 title match between top-seeded Saint Francis and No. 2 seed Kapaa at 5 p.m.

No. 1 IOLANI 3, No. 6 KALAHEO 0
Kupono Browne and Kawika Lee recorded 11 kills apiece and Shane Harimoto notched 37 assists to lead the Raiders (13-4) in the 25-19, 25-7 and 25-18 sweep of the Mustangs (14-3).

The Mustangs pulled to within 18-16 in game 1 after Reggaen Eugenio and Anthony Caswell teamed for a couple block. However, the Raiders answered with back-to-back double blocks by Carter Kamana and Makani Hiltner, followed by a Browne ace to separate to extend it to a five-point lead and never looked back.

Iolani never trailed in game 2 and build an early 11-2 lead. It hit a .737 for the set with just one attacking error on 19 attempts.

Kalaheo led by a couple of points early on in game 3, but Iolani went on a 5-1 run to turn a 10-all tie into a 15-11 advantage. Brendan Parke's kill from the left side off an assist from Harimoto on match point sealed the victory.

Iolani hit a blistering .493 for the match. Browne (three errors in 19 attempts) and Lee (two errors in 23 swings) hit .421 and .391, respectively. Hiltner put down six kills in nine swings with no errors (.667 kill percentage), Kamana had six kills and 2 1/2 blocks and Kilo Scanlan chipped in five kills.

Browne had just five kills and hit .143 in Thursday's quarterfinal sweep of Hilo.

"I think that was an anomaly," said Inafuku, who emptied the bench against the Vikings. "He played very little, got very little sets. I mean, he played well (Thursday) night; I think it was just a weird statistic. He's in a good rhythm. You know, we pass well and give him good opportunities, so he should be hitting for a pretty high number."

The Raiders were led in the back row by libero Jarin Simon, who posted nine digs and was 8 of 8 on serve-receive. He also had one of his team's four service aces. Browne added five digs and a pair of aces and Lee, who was 16 of 17 on serve-receive, finished with three digs, 1 1/2 blocks and an ace.

"Serve and pass is important for us. We have to control the ball, we have to knock the other team off the net, so those are keys for us so it's good to know that we're doing both of those things well going into (Saturday)," Inafuku said.

Liam York had a game-high 12 kills for the Oahu Interscholastic Association runner-up Mustangs.

No. 2 PUNAHOU 3, No. 4 MOANALUA 2
Jack Deuchar tallied 22 kills and Kawai Hong and Jakob Kimura each added 12 to help the Buffanblu (15-4) hold off second-seeded Na Menehune (14-2) 22-25, 25-18, 25-19, 21-25 and 15-5 in a back-and-forth semifinal late Friday night.

After the teams split the first two sets, Punahou used a a 7-0 run early in game 3 and a 4-1 run to close out the set to a take a two games to one advantage. However, it committed seven service errors in game 4 and Moanalua hit .591 in the set to even the match headed to the fifth and deciding set.

Na Menehune jumped out to an early lead in game 5 after a pair of Max Slaughter kills were sandwiched around a Punahou back row attacker violation. That forced Buffanblu coach Rick Tune to call timeout with his team trailing 3-0.

Tune said his message to the team in the huddle was to draw from what it had gleaned in ultra-competitive practices leading up to the state tournament.

"My message to the guys was, ‘Look, don't feel like you need to press harder or be more perfect. What you have to do is you have to compete,' just like they compete against the first team every day in practice," Tune said. "We go starters and first team. So our first-team guys last week, they beat our starting team the first two days of the week, straight up, and that sends a strong message that those guys have to compete, so all I said was, ‘You guys just have to play like you (did) against the first team last week,' and they got it. They knew what that emotional reaction they had to have was and we saw them do it."

Indeed they did. The Buffanblu scored seven of the next eight points out of the timeout and went on to close out the match with a 8-0 run.

The big difference for Punahou came at the net, where they posted 14 team blocks — five of them in game 5 — to seven for Moanalua. Braxdon Simmons totaled five blocks, Robert Allen had 3 1/2 and Deuchar three. Four of its five blocks in the fifth set were against Slaughter, who finished with a match-high 30 kills on 69 swings.

"Slaughter is a great hitter. I think we changed some things up there for that fifth set. I think we just trusted each other and we started just doing our job within the scheme of the defense. I think for a lot of the match we were trying to do more than our job and that's a recipe for things not working out too well," Tune said.

DiAeris McRaven added 13 kills, Barron Paikai had 10 digs and Cole Fukumitsu 37 assists for Na Menehune, which hit .143 for the match.

Shea Suzumoto dug a match-high 18 balls for Punahou. Setters Connor McInerny and Keegan Au Yuen finished with 34 assists with two aces and 18 assists with three aces, respectively.

The Buffanblu committed 18 service errors for the match.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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