The Rough Riders celebrate a point against Kaiser. Roosevelt was balanced in its third straight win, with seven players registering kills and assists. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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The Rough Riders celebrate a point against Kaiser. Roosevelt was balanced in its third straight win, with seven players registering kills and assists. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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MAKIKI — All hands were on deck as Roosevelt swept visiting Kaiser on homecoming for its third straight win Monday night.

The Rough Riders used a balanced attack and a pesky defense to defeat the Cougars, 25-18, 25-21, to improve to 4-2 in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Eastern Division standings. Kaiser suffered its third straight loss and dropped to 2-4 in league play.

"It's looking pretty good for us right now," said Roosevelt coach Puna Velasco. "Tonight was a really nice win for us. They came out and they stayed at a nice, high level the entire night. Kaiser was really tough tonight. I'm just glad we played the way we needed to play to beat them. They're big."

Velasco's squad was all about sharing against the Cougars. Everyone did a little bit of everything as seven different players had kills while seven different players had assists.

"The one good thing is that they're pretty well-rounded players, most of them are, so it's really nice," said Velasco. "It affords us a luxury that some teams might not have." 

Teulia Faasavalu had five kills to finish with the most kills for the Rough Riders. Mari Foster, Lauren Pau-DeSantos and Pistol Sens were right behind Faasavalu with four kills each. Vanessa Colling, Danika Stewart and Sierra Sagucio each chipped in two kills apiece to round out the Roosevelt attack.

Roosevelt needed to be solid as a team to fend off a bigger Kaiser squad. The Rough Riders' tallest player is listed at 5-foot-7 while the Cougars have eight players on their roster that are taller than that. 

To slow down Kaiser's power hitters, Destiny Kaumatule (match-high 10 kills) and Chantelle Fiso-Naki (four kills), Roosevelt had to be strong defensively. 

Leading the back row effort for the Rough Riders were Faasavalu and Julie Chung, who had 11 and eight digs respectively. Jessica Au was another key contributor down the stretch, garnering five of her six digs in the second set. 

"They carried and anchored us," Velasco said of his back row players. "Our center back players were really good tonight. We had to be that way against this offensive team. Kaiser is very heavy on offense so we had to be better defensively so we can transition (to our system). Without the defense, we would have struggled tonight." 

Sens had two blocks, one solo, to lead the effort up front. Colling and Sagucio each added two block assists and Pau-DeSantos had one more to round out the Roosevelt players with blocks.

"They were great defensively," Kaiser coach Ernest Noborikawa said of Roosevelt. "They're not very big, but they touched a lot of balls and they were digging a lot of balls. Credit to them, they were really good on defense tonight."

Roosevelt jumped out to an early 4-0 lead thanks to two Kaiser errors. The Cougars scored the next two points, but gave the Rough Riders three out of their next four points and faced a 8-3 hole. Au had a service ace on the next point, which forced Kaiser to burn a timeout. 

"We've been doing it all season. We give up too many easy points in the beginning and we try to play catch up and it comes to bite us a lot," said Noborikawa. 

The Rough Riders led by as many as 11 points in game one before winning 25-18.

Kaiser held early leads to start set two, but Roosevelt pulled away with a 5-0 run to take a 6-2 lead. The Rough Riders were able to nurture their lead for most of the game, growing it to as many as eight points on three occasions. 

The Cougars stormed back late in the set with a mini 5-0 run when setter Cheyenne Hallin was back to serve, cutting Roosevelt's lead down to three, 23-20. Stewart regained the serve for the Rough Riders with a dump and Sens was able to pound the match-winning point two plays later.

Roosevelt will look for its fourth straight win when it hosts Anuenue (2-4) while Kaiser will look to snap its losing streak when it returns home to take on McKinley (0-6). Both games are scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 21.