Moanalua's Lia Gaogao puts down a kill attempt against Kahuku. Peter Caldwell | SL

Purchase image 1 of 1

KAHUKU — When Moanalua needed kills Wednesday night, it turned to its standout duo of Jojo Kruize and Lia Gaogao.

The pair answered the call to the tune of a combined 20 kills to lead Moanalua to a three-set win over Kahuku on a humid, steamy night before a crowd of about 250 fans at the Red Raiders' home gymnasium. The scores were 26-24, 19-25 and 15-13.

With the win, Na Menehune improve to 9-0 and moves into sole possession of first place in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Eastern Division, while the Red Raiders suffered their first loss of the season and now sit at 8-1 with each team having two matches remaining in the regular season.

"It was very huge, I mean, Kahuku is always awesome — they're an amazing team — and it took everything we had and then some to win this," Kruize said. "I just think we were able to stay together as a team, we believed in each other and pushed until the end and that's how we won."

Kruize, a 5-foot-11 junior outside hitter, put down a match-high 13 kills — including five in the deciding third set. Gaogao, a 6-foot senior who moved from outside hitter to middle hitter — and even opposite at times — for this match, added seven kills, two aces and was one four Moanalua players with two blocks. Na Menehune recorded nine blocks in all.

Thea Leiataua and Carey Williams led Kahuku with nine kills and two aces apiece.

After splitting the first two games, the teams were tied at 13 late in game three before Kruize gave Moanalua match point with a kill from the left side and following a Kahuku timeout, Gaogao closed it out with a kill from the back row.

Moanalua won the opening set behind five kills from Gaogao, but not without a fight from the home team. After a 7-0 run gave Na Menehune a 15-8 lead, the Red Raiders battled all the way back to tie it at 24 on a Moanalua net violation. However, Kahuku put the ensuing serve into the next and hit a ball wide on set point.

Kahuku, which committed four hitting errors and four service errors in game one, benefitted from eight Moanalua hitting errors in game two. Leiataua and Williams notched four kills apiece in the set, which the Red Raiders won easily.

"We were doing the same thing we were doing in the first set, they adjusted and forced us to make errors and in the third set we had to make our own adjustment and when we did we started to play a lot better," Na Menehune coach Alan Cabanting said.

The Red Raiders held a 10-7 advantage in game three, but Na Menehune used a 5-2 run to force a tie at 12. Moanalua scored five of the final six points of the match.

Cabanting said it was important for his team to slow down Kahuku's middle attack.

"We asked Lia to play in the middle and then at opposite, just to get the blocks against their middles, because their middles are just great middles, so in order for us to be able to slow it down a little bit we asked her to go in the middle and because of that she really focused on the defense — both in the front row blocking and in the back row digging — so we got a lot out of her," Cabanting said.

Kahuku served up five aces in game one, but none the rest of the way. It finished with 10 service errors, including a few at inopportune times.

"We definitely had some service errors and that's difficult to overcome, especially when it's a momentum-breaker," Lamb said. "I think we missed maybe two or three in a row in the first set and then in the third set, you know, when you miss a couple in a 15-point set, that's going to give you challenges."

It was just the second time all season that Kahuku went to a third set.

"We knew they were going to battle and we haven't been able to watch obviously, but just looking at scores and knowing the kids that they have on their team we knew it was going to be tough for us when we came in," Red Raiders' coach Lee Lamb said of Moanalua.

Moanalua, which had not dropped a set all year, wraps up the regular season wtih matches against Kalani and Anuenue, while Kahuku faces Anuenue and McKinley next week.