Rayden Aoki | SL

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Rayden Aoki | SL

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For the third consecutive year, the Rough Riders are marching into the quarterfinals.

Roosevelt took down Maui in four sets, 25-17, 25-19, 23-25, 26-24, in the opening round of the New City Nissan/HHSAA Division I Boys Volleyball Championships, to set up a clash against OIA East rival Moanalua.

Trailing two sets to one, the Sabers held a 24-22 lead in the fourth set, and looked poised to force a deciding fifth, but the Rough Riders rallied in a big way, scoring the final four points consecutive, getting kills by Jonathan Yadao and Kenneth Hee to tie the set up. A mishandled set by the Sabers gave Roosevelt set point, and Ford Lyons put down the final kill to win it.

Yadao had a match high 19 kills to go along with 12 digs and two aces, and Ford Lyons added 13 kills, three blocks, four digs and three assists to lead the way for the Rough Riders, who were even with the MIL runners-up in total blocks 12 to 11, but had less service aces (6 to 4) and more service errors (11 to 7) in the match.

The Riders made up for the service line deficiencies with double the defensive digs (44 to 22) to go along with a significant advantage in hitting percentage, registering a .284 percentage in the match compared to just .084 for the Saber, and a 55 to 39 edge in total kills.