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Stacy Kaneshiro | ScoringLiveMay 5, 2018, 10:19pm
Sat, May 5, 2018 @ Blaisdell [ 5:00 pm ]
KAKAAKO – Wembley Mailei had 14 of his match-high 17 kills in the final three sets to help Saint Francis rally from a two-set deficit to defeat Kapaa, 15-25, 19-25, 25-18, 25-19, 15-12, Saturday night to capture the school's first New City Nissan/HHSAA Division II Boys Volleyball State Championship at the Blaisdell Arena.
"We just had to play for our school," Mailei said. "We wanted to make history for our school. This was our opportunity."
Indeed it was.
"This feels awesome," Saints coach Dandi Holder said. "Totally awesome. These kids overcame adversity all year long. For this outcome to happen, it's amazing."
Amazing indeed.
The Saints (13-2) were on the brink of watching the Warriors (13-2) go for a sweep. Kapaa led 10-5, but the Saints used a 10-2 run to take a 15-12 lead — a lead it would not relinquish to pull to within one set.
"We told them, ‘This is it. This is the state championship. There's no tomorrow. You guys have to keep pushing. If you want it, you have to fight for it,'" Holder said she told her team when it was down 2-0.
The did fight.
"It's a blessing," Mailei said "Just rounding the boys up together. It wasn't me. It was Jesus Garcia."
Garcia is the team's setter, who registered 35 assists and six kills with well-placed dinks. He traded compliments with Mailei.
"Wembley, he's amazing," Garcia said of the 6-foot-2 middle/outside hitter. "He's our go-to guy. He puts down a lot of balls for us. I couldn't do anything without him or anybody else on the team."
The Saints (13-2) hit a dismal minus-.360 and minus-.057 in the first two sets against the Warriors (13-2), who weren't exactly killing it either with hitting percentages of .080 and .182 in the same sets, respectively.
"I think it was kind of nerves at the beginning," Garcia said of his team's early hitting woes. "We haven't been (to the title game) before so we had settle down and we found the groove."
It was a painful loss for Kapaa, which was seeking its first title since 2005, the inaugural Division II tournament.
"We just got in a bad rotation and we kind of let them in the door," Warriors coach Kapule Kaona said. "Once we let them in the door, that gave Saiint Francis confidence, broke our confidence a little bit. I thought if we could get over that that we could be fine, but we kind of got stuck in that rut. We weren't able to snap out of it in that third set. It carried over to the fourth, the fifth. I think mentally, we broke down."
Though the Warriors labored with their hitting as well, they were winning the battle at the net with 10 blocks to the Saints' seven after the first two sets. By the end, Saint Francis won the blocks, 19-17.
"We were blocking very well," Kaona said. "(Then) we started jumping too early. We were making those errors and mistakes. We were very anxious. We were trying to do too much in our blocking. With that came undisciplined hands. (The Saints) were getting a lot of twos off of our blocks."
Justin Faidley and Kiran Costa led Kapaa with eight kills each. Faidley also had a team-high six blocks.
The first set was tied at 8 before the Warriors used a 13-4 run en route to a 25-15 win.
Kapaa came from an 8-4 deficit in the second set before tying the set at 12 and 13 before taking a 14-13 lead. The Warriors fell behind again but used a 9-4 run at the end to take the first set, 25-19.
In the third set, Kapaa saw a 10-5 lead dwindle to 12-9 before the Saints went on a 6-0 run to take a lead it would not relinquish to take the third set.
Saint Francis stormed out of the fourth set, only to see Kapaa tie it at 17. But the Saints closed out the set with an 8-2 run.
Kapaa took its last lead of the night, 4-3, in the pivotal fifth set. But the Saints followed with a 4-0 run to take the lead for good. The Warriors did pull to within 12-11, but Mofuike Hafoka closed out the the Warriors with three of his 12 kills in a 3-1 run.
"It's an incredible feeling," Garcia said of the win. "Even when we were down 0-2, I knew we could come back and win the set because we've done it and we could do it again."
Congratulations to the Saint Francis Saints on winning their first-ever boys volleyball state title with a 15-25, 19-25, 25-18, 25-19, 15-12 over Kapaa in the Division II championship match. #ChaseForTheChampionship pic.twitter.com/abzEXAaff4 — Cj Caraang (@_SLCJ) May 6, 2018
Congratulations to the Saint Francis Saints on winning their first-ever boys volleyball state title with a 15-25, 19-25, 25-18, 25-19, 15-12 over Kapaa in the Division II championship match. #ChaseForTheChampionship pic.twitter.com/abzEXAaff4
New City Nissan/HHSAA Division II Boys Volleyball All-Tournament Teamselected by the media and the HHSAA
Mofuike Hafoka, Saint FrancisJustin Faidley, KapaaWembley Mailei, Saint FrancisZion Tupuola-Fetui, Pearl CityRusdan-Rocket Ahuna, KapaaWalter Berthold, Saint Francis Most Outstanding Player: Jesus Garcia, Saint Francis
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