Warriors way

HILO — Sophomore Mamane Namahoe hammered 15 kills, senior Donovan Hoohuli 12 and senior Ian Witten 10 to lead unbeaten Waiakea to a 25-22, 20-25, 25-22, 25-17 win over Kohala in a hard-fought Blue Division match on Friday night.

The Big Island Interscholastic Federation boys volleyball match was played at the Warriors gym.

Waiakea (6-0) relied upon its hard-hitting offense, steady serve and improving defense to fight past the Cowboys (4-2). But the hosts had to overcome a 36-kill performance from senior Donald “D.J.” Wong and a strong all-around match from senior Chris Roxburgh to chalk up the victory before a small crowd.

“We know we have enough offense this year,” Waiakea coach Ecko Osorio said. “But we want to get better on defense. Kohala is a tough team, and it’s not easy to stop D.J., but I thought we played much better defense tonight. We started to make second contacts and got everybody more involved.

“I think that was a difference in the game, and we stayed pretty steady. Kohala had some little breakdowns, and that hurt them.”

Both teams came out firing in Game 1 and battled evenly throughout before the Warriors grabbed a 24-20 lead behind the power of Hoohuli and Namahoe. The Cowboys then closed to 24-22 on Kekoa Werner’s block and a Waiakea error.

But the hosts closed out the game on a net violation by Kohala — one of several net violations called on the visitors during the match.

In Game 2, the high-flying Wong and 6-foot-3 Roxburgh took over and led the Cowboys to a gutsy 25-20 victory. Waiakea pulled to within 23-20 on the 6-4 Witten’s kill before Wong drilled a monster kill and served an ace to tie the match 1-1.

Wong had 11 kills in the game, including an unreturnable smash that hit the floor, sparking the talented senior to blurt out “boom” with a smile of satisfaction.

But Waiakea stepped up in Game 3 defensively while shaky serving and net violations continued to hinder the Cowboys’ momentum. A Wong kill tied the game at 21-21 before the quick-jumping Hoohuli responded with a kill to give the hosts the lead for good at 22-21. Then after another Wong kill sliced the Warrior lead to 23-22, Witten and junior Mano Thomson combined on a block to give Waiakea a 24-22 advantage. The hosts then sealed the victory courtesy of another Kohala net violation.

In Game 4, Wong started strong — ripping four early kills to lift the Cowboys on top 5-2. But the Warriors remained steady and got a spark from sophomore Dillon Rellez (six kills) and more poundage from Hoohuli and Namahoe to take a 17-12 lead.

Wong had an ace and a clever dink to pull Kohala within 17-15. But the host’s overall balance — with Hoohuli, Namahoe, Rellez and Witten hitting the ball — proved to be too much and Waiakea pulled away for the 25-17 win.

Hoohuli, a 6-footer, and Witten combined for 22 kills in the middle — a strong contribution along with the versatile 5-10 Namahoe that helped overcome Wong’s big night.

“I like their team,” Osorio said. “When they served well, limited their mistakes and got D.J. the ball, they had us on the ropes.

“But we just tried to be steady and we got some points from our middles. Plus I’m really happy we’re starting to make more plays on defense.”

“We needed to get this win, and it’s a morale boost,” Hoohuli said. “We knew it was a big game with Kohala coming in. They’re a good team and we want to keep playing better as a team.”

Kohala coach Chai Wilson called Waiakea “an excellent team.”

“They have all the keys for a really good team, but we didn’t play Cowboys’ volleyball tonight,” he said. “We knew going in that we needed to limit the little errors — like in serving and the net violations. But tonight we had a bunch of them.

“For us to get better and play well against the top teams, we’ve got to play clean volleyball. We work on it all the time in practice, but we still make some of those same mistakes in the game.”

Wilson added that he’d like to see his team win every match, but if the Cowboys do lose, he wants it to be a learning situation.

“We need to learn from this loss tonight,” he said. “The potential is there for us to be a really good team. Now, we’ve just got to keep working hard to reach that potential.”

In junior-varsity action, Waiakea defeated Kohala 25-16, 25-22.