ILH Boys Volleyball
No. 2 Kamehameha outlasts No. 4 Iolani in key ILH matchup


  



Mon, Apr 3, 2023 @ Kamehameha [ 6:00 pm ]


FINAL  1   2   3   4   5      
IOL (7-6) 18 25 34 14 14 2
KSK (12-4) 25 23 32 25 16 3
Kill: K. Wade (KSK) 46 kills

KAPALAMA HEIGHTS — The Kamehameha boys volleyball team are one win away from punching its ticket into the state tournament.

The second-ranked Warriors fended off No. 4 Iolani in a five-set thriller Monday night at Kekuhaupio Gymnasium behind a match-high 46 kills by Kainoa Wade.

Set scores were 25-18, 25-23, 32-34, 25-14 and 16-14.

Kamehameha improved to 6-1 atop the ILH Division I standings with the win and can clinch one of the league's two playoff berths with a win at Punahou (5-2) on Wednesday.

The Raiders saw their three-match winning streak come to an end as they fell to 4-3 to pull into third place in the standings.

Wade, a 6-foot-8 sophomore, had just 11 kills through the opening two sets before turning it on with 35 kills spread out over the final three sets. He had 14 apiece in the third and fourth set and had seven in the final game with his final kill setting up match point.

"At the beginning we try to spread it out… but man he's a beast," Kamehameha coach Sava Agpoon said of Wade. "He wants every ball he can. I try to remind our setter to try and spread it out because we need (Wade) for the fourth and fifth set, but he always says ‘coach I got it, don't worry.'"

Senior Heston Cabinian was the next leading attacker with 19 kills, seven digs and two block assists. Brayden Van Kuren was strong at the controls with 65 assists and 13 digs and libero Harryzen Soares did his thing with 15 digs and seven assists.

Tyler Van Cantfort (47 assists, four kills) was at the controls for a balanced Iolani attack with three players finished with double-digit kills. Casey Lyons led the Raiders with 18 kills, Waipehe Winchester had a double-double of 12 kills and 11 digs and Colby Fournier rounded out the attack with 10 kills, two solo blocks and two aces. Middle Jackson Dempster was also solid with eight kills and five block assists.

Ultimately the match came down to two things: serving and blocking.

The stats don't show that Kamehameha won the battle, but its strong effort on both ends helped to keep Iolani out of system majority of the night.

The Raiders struggled in serve-receive in the opening set. Cabanian's serve generated an overpass kill by Poukihi Awai to force Iolani to take the first timeout of the match down 13-10 in the first set. The following serve was another pass back into the Kamehameha side of the court that the Warriors were able to recycle into a Conor Williams kill.

Iolani needed another timeout a few points later after the Raiders couldn't get the ball across the net after back-to-back serves by Soares to put Kamehameha up 17-11.

"We served strong, got off to a great start," Agpoon said.

The second and third set could have gone either way, but Agpoon said simple errors costed them those games.

"That second set that we loss was probably attributed to our bad serves and in the third set I think we missed four serves in the beginning and we never recovered from it. Small errors kill us too. It usually comes down to communication."

The Warriors put the losses in the rearview mirror in the fourth set to had their most commanding set win of the match. Everything was working for them, even when Van Kuren had to take the first touch.

"That's another thing that we're working on… character. Trying to think like champions and become a better cohesive group… just a brotherhood we're trying to create for them and believe in each other instead of believing that they're going to win," said Agpoon.

Kamehameha got off to a quick 4-0 lead in the fifth after Wade won a joust to force a Iolani timeout. Lyons got the side out on the next point, but miscommunication on the second touch and a hitting error made it 6-1 to force another timeout by the Raiders.

The Raiders back however and tied it at eight after a call got overturned to give Winchester a kill and a Iolani block. The two teams continued to trade points before a dump attempt by Van Cantfort went out of bounds to give Kamehameha a 12-10 lead.

A kill by Lyons got the Raiders back within one before the biggest deciding call of the match. A kill attempt by Cabinian nipped the Iolani block before going out, but the tower official was unsure and quickly motioned for a conference with the other official and the two line judges. After the discussion, the two official made the motion to rule the point in Iolani's favor before reversing the call in Kamehameha's favor to make the score 13-11.

The Raiders ultimately tied it at 13 and the score remained tied at 14 after the two teams traded service errors. Kamehameha would go on to win the final two points with a kill by Wade and a hitting error by the Raiders.



Reach Michael Lasquero at [email protected].




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