MILILANI — Moanalua wasn't going to let this opportunity slip away. 

Zaria Queen and Jerney Tang-Silva put down 17 kills apiece and Kaila Kalama-Bajet recorded a triple-double to lead No. 2 Moanalua to a four-set win over No. 10 Kapolei in the title match of the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I girls volleyball tournament Wednesday night. 

The set scores were 25-23, 25-17, 22-25 and 25-14.

A near-capacity crowd of 1,500 fans at Mililani saw Na Menehune (13-0), the top seed out of the Eastern Division, capture their first league crown since 2017 and sixth overall at the hands of the West top-seeded Hurricanes (11-2). 

Moanalua reached the OIA final a year ago, but was swept by Mililani in that match. That memory fueled coach Alan Cabanting's senior-laden squad to redemption this fall. 

"Yeah, absolutely. They had it in their minds and it was nice that their senior year they were able to take the OIA title and they did it as a team, not just one superstar. Everybody contributed at one moment in the match," Cabanting said. 

Queen and Tang-Silva, a pair of left-side attackers and two of 10 seniors on the team, remembered all too well the disappointment of falling short a year ago. 

"Every single day at practice we remembered that and we were like, ‘Hey, that's not happening this year. This title is ours,' and that really reflected in our practices," said Queen, who hit .385 for the match.

Queen said the Menes remained laser focused on their goal throughout the season.

"There was no time that we were slacking off, we were holding each other accountable to make sure that when we got to this, we could take care of business," she said. 

Tang-Silva echoed the thoughts of her teammate. 

"We really wanted it this year and we were all mentally focused from the get go. Ever since preseason we knew that we wanted to be in this OIA championship and we wanted to push ourselves to be the best that we could be, so all the girls, I'm really thankful that we all had that one goal in mind ever since last year," said Tang-Silva, who also came up with eight digs and was in on three blocks. 

Queen tallied seven digs and three of her team's eight aces at the service line. 

Kalama-Bajet, who played at Damien a year ago, racked up 26 assists, 12 digs, 11 kills, two aces and one-half block. 

Freshman Surfia Grounds had seven kills off the bench and middle blocker Chloe Fukumitsu added six kills and 2 ½ blocks, while libero Natalie Fukumoto came up with a team-best 15 digs along with 10 assists. 

Queen said the final statistics are a reflection of the Menes' multitude of weapons offensively. 

"I think that's a big thing with our team, we have so many weapons from front row to back row so everyone is a threat and so the other side never knows where the ball is going to go and everyone has their nights where they're killing it and it's always someone different, so I think that's a really big part of why we were able to do this tonight," Queen stated. 

To Queen's point, Cabanting found it fitting that she and Tang-Silva not only finished with 17 kills apiece, but each took 39 swings as well. 

"Yeah, absolutely. Everybody knows Zaria and Jerney as far as hitters are concerned and we wanted to ensure that to match up with the ILH teams, we gotta be as balanced as we can be," Cabanting said. 

He credited Kalama-Bajet and Grounds for their production on the right side, as well as the work of middles Fukumitsu and Timari Filisi for keeping Kapolei's middles honest. 

"We were able to push (the Hurricanes) to set the balls to the outside, so that was a good thing," Cabanting said. 

It was that balance the Menes displayed Wednesday that makes them a tough task to defend against, Kapolei coach Naidah Gamurot said. 

"Yeah and in every position, right?," she lamented. 

Moanalua defeated Kapolei in two sets in the preseason at a tournament hosted by Kamehameha. 

"Moanalua was just dominating at the net. We saw what was there so we actually kind of changed how we ran because of how they swept us there. It was good to see it early so I knew it was coming and we could kind of plan for that, but finally actually doing it was another story, but we're still getting better," Gamurot expressed. 

The Hurricanes were setback a bit when sophomore setter/opposite Anny Scott rolled her ankle on a play at the net. She exited the match briefly, but re-entered several points later and was able to finish out the match. Gamurot disclosed that it did hinder her squad when Scott suffered the injury. 

"It did. We had problems in the first set once that kicked in so it played a bit of a role in the back half of the first set and then the second set and then we were able to come back from that fairly well and then but it was a little bit of a roller coaster and then we kind of lost it," Gamurot said. 

In the opening set, Moanalua turned a 17-15 deficit into a 21-19 lead with a 6-2 run that included two kills by Tang-Silva and one kill and an ace by Queen. Queen's kill from the left side off an assist from Jayde Taamu-Perifanos ended set 1. 

Moanalua never trailed in set 2, which Queen finished off with a slam that was set up by Rylie Ramones, one of three setters the Menes used in the match. 

Kapolei trailed 19-18 late in set 3, but closed it out with a 7-3 run that was capped by back-to-back kills by Leila Paraoan. 

The fourth set, however, was all Menes. They jumped out to a 5-1 lead after consecutive kills out of the middle by Fukumitsu and stretched it to a 9-3 cushion following an ace by Queen. Several points later, Filisi put down her only kill of the match off of a Kapolei overpass that was forced by a tough serve from Taamu-Perifanos to give Moanalua a 15-5 lead. Kalama-Bajet put down three kills from the right side in a span of four points to extend the score to 20-7. 

Alessandra Siazon's kill from the right side set up match point and Sienna Lee finished off the match with an ace. 

Tang-Silva was proud of the way her team responded in the fourth set after dropping the third. 

"I thought they responded really great and we came back with a lot of energy, a lot of positivity and we came and we devoured," she said. 

Moanalua hit .368 in set 4 and .315 for the match. 

Conversely, Kapolei hit just .167 in the final set and .221 for the match. 

Paraoan led the way for the ‘Canes with a match-high 21 kills on 51 swings. Scott gutted her way to a 26-assist, 12-dig, nine-kill performance. Tehani Faasuamanu chipped in 12 assists, eight digs and six kills, libero Kaitlin Kiko added 15 digs and five assists and defensive specialist Tiana Dela Cruz had 12 digs and two aces in the loss. 

"We really had to dig deep, everybody had to dig deep and I wish we would have come out the way we wanted to, but we really played hard and we tried our best, (but) we just let the little things get to us," Paraoan said. 

Kapolei will host OIA fifth-place finisher Mililani Monday at a time to be determined in the play-in round of the New City Nissan/HHSAA Division I State Championships. 

Moanalua, one of four league champions with a first-round bye, will await the winner of Monday's Kalaheo-at-Waiakea match in next Thursday's quarterfinal round. 

Interscholastic League of Honolulu champion Iolani is the top seed in the 12-team bracket and will play either Kahuku or Kamehameha-Maui. Baldwin is seeded third and will face either Konawaena or Kamehameha and Kamehameha-Hawaii drew the fourth seed and will take on the Mililani-Kapolei winner.