Kahuku dominates service line in sweep of Moanalua

Brian Bautista | SL

KAHUKU — This was the match that the Kahuku girls volleyball team had circled on the calendar for a long time.

The Red Raiders avenged their only home loss during the 2024 season with a 25-15, 25-16, 25-16 straight set win over visiting Moanalua Tuesday night at Thomas G.S. Walker Gymnasium in an OIA Division-I East match.

Kahuku (3-0) tallied 18 total aces in a battle of two perennial contenders in the East who were both undefeated coming into the matchup. Na Menehune (2-1) are also the reigning league champion.

It was the first time that Moanalua dropped a regular season match in three straight sets since the OIA employed a best-of-5 format for the regular season in 2019. In the best-of-3 era, the last time Na Menehune failed to win a set in the regular season was on Sept. 21, 2016 to Kahuku.

"It's a good feeling because we worked towards this the whole season," said Kahuku senior Lamona Lauhingoa. "This is the game we've been looking forward to since preseason, since offseason training and working together, it really showed tonight so I'm proud of our team."

Lauhingoa was one of seven different players to register an ace for the Red Raiders. Makamae Schilling led the way with six aces, four of which came in consecutive points to give Kahuku a 19-11 lead in the third set.

"Our team, we play for different clubs and those girls from Moanalua, some of our teammates play with them so they know their weaknesses and their strengths so when they went back to the service line, they picked on them till we served them off the court so I'm proud of them for doing that."

Lauhingoa led the Red Raiders offensively with a match-high 11 kills with two blocks and two aces. Talia Soliai-Tui followed with seven kills, three aces, Elenoa Lauhingoa had six kills and Haley Kotobalavu added five more to round out the top attackers for Kahuku.

Alessandra Siazon led Na Menehune with six kills despite coming out of the match due to a hard fall in the second set. Moanalua libero Sienna Lee paced the back row with a match-high 14 digs.