[ HIGH SCHOOL VOLLEYBALL ]
Iolani gets over
slump for ILH title
Michael Jordan never rebounded bigger than the Iolani boys volleyball team did last night.
The Raiders, who began their season with 13 straight victories, led Punahou 2-0 last week before dropping three straight to lose that match. On Tuesday, they were swept by Kamehameha in three games.
And last night, with the Interscholastic League of Honolulu championship on the line, and little margin for error, they fell behind 1-0 last night, their seventh setback in a row. But that's where Iolani did an about-face, regrouping to outlast the Warriors 26-27, 25-22, 23-25, 25-21, 15-9 at Kamehameha's Kekuhaupio Fieldhouse.
"Tuesday was one of the worst games we've ever played," said Iolani's Sean Carney. "Nothing went our way. We were late getting here on the bus, we weren't acquainted with the gym, and everything escalated from there. We did some team bonding activities (in practice on Wednesday) and got some fun back into the game.
"I didn't worry because we have good team chemistry. If we lose a game, we're going to come back and try our best. Kamehameha is a great team, so we know it's always going to be a battle between us. It could have gone either way at the end, but today was our day."
The win gave Iolani (14-2) its first ILH title since 1979 as well as the league's top seed in the state tournament, which begins Tuesday. Two-time defending state champion Kamehameha (14-2), which won the ILH's second round with a 4-0 mark, earned the league's second seed.
"I said at the beginning of the season that it (Iolani's success) was going to come down to whether or not we took care of our side of the court," Iolani coach Luis Ramirez said. "Coming into the match, I wanted the kids to gain the confidence that they needed to propel us in the state tournament.
"We can play a lot better than how we played -- we were tentative (on Tuesday) -- but we want them to just enjoy themselves and have fun. We fought through adversity and, after losing the first set, we stuck with it. We started believing in ourselves and believing we could do it, and that was the big difference."
Todd Blankenship led Iolani with 18 kills, while Carney and Kyle Pape finished with 14 apiece. Kawika Shoji added 12 kills.
The decisive fifth game was not unlike the previous four, with nearly every point contested. In all, there were six lead changes, and the score was tied on eight occasions -- the final time at 9-all. Only moments earlier, with the score knotted at 8, play had been interrupted when Kamehameha's stellar outside hitter Adam Tuifagu went down briefly with a cramp.
"Adam is their go-to-guy, and I give him a lot of credit for mustering the courage to come back in the game," Ramirez said. "I'm hopeful he can get well so they can have a good outing at the state tournament."
Tuifagu returned to finish the match, but Iolani had seized the momentum -- and the lead for good -- on a net violation by the Warriors and a kill by Carney. When Tuifagu sent a blast deep seconds later, the Raiders led 12-9. Another hitting error made it 13-9, and then Carney closed out the match with back-to-back kills.
While the Raiders also displayed plenty of resolve by winning Game 4 to force the decisive fifth game, the biggest encounter of their season to date was undoubtedly Game 2.
"We couldn't go down 2-0 -- we just couldn't," said Blankenship. "They (Kamehameha) were really tough."
Kamehameha held leads of 7-1 and 15-9 in the second game, only to see the Raiders respond in a big way.
"We just lost our attention to detail," Kamehameha coach Pono Ma'a said.
