LIHU‘E — The Island School Voyager wahine swept its series against Kaua‘i High School, and Kapa‘a Lady Warriors went home with a split, Tuesday when the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation resumed girls volleyball games at the Kaua‘i High School gym, and the Clem Gomes Gym in Waimea.
The Voyagers presented a demonstration of nearly uninterrupted school during the COVID-19, striking first in the JV games before sweeping the JV Lady Red Raiders, 25-18, 25-11, and 25-11.
Varsity Lady Voyagers continued the win streak by taking Kaua‘i High School in four sets, 25-18, 15-25, 25-22, and 25-22.
The Kapa‘a trip to Waimea started out on the right foot as the JV Lady Warriors, under the coaching of Carleen Haneberg, Keapo Gonsalves, and Ma’ilika Napolean picked up the 2-1 win over the JV Waimea High School, 16-25, 25-22, and 25-16 before an audience of several hundred people who were pre-ticketed to attend the match.
Waimea athletic director Jon Kobayashi said there are no walk-up ticket sales. Each school is allocated enough tickets to accommodate an approximate 300-person maximum occupancy in the gym, and no tickets would be available at the door.
To accommodate this, the Waimea High School media program under Joyce Evens will provide live streaming of the contests on Menehune Live on UTube. The Saturday football game between Kapa‘a and Waimea was also streamed live.
Momentum from the Kapa‘a JV win carried over to the varsity contest as enthusiastic cheering and clapping marked performances from the Lady Warriors, including scoring hits from Shayna Kamoku and Tavehi Dubocage.
The enthusiasm waned as Waimea shook off the dust of being idle for nearly two years and rolled behind the mixed bag setting from Braenna Moises, and the Menehune rotation that saw strong left side hitting outdistance Kapa‘a, including a 9-point run that settled the score a 20-9 in favor of Waimea.
The Menehune blossomed in the second set in all facets of the game and capitalizing on Kapa‘a miscues, locked up a 25-8 second set on a Kapa‘a hitting error. Waimea locked up the third set, 25-17 on a strong left-side hammer, but only after Kapa‘a stayed within three points throughout the set as the Menehune were getting tired and created miscues on the court. Those miscues plagued the Lady Warriors, too as Waimea pulled ahead to seal the deal 25-17 on a strong left-side hammer.
“After two years of not playing, this was a pretty good performance by the girls,” said Brandi Hori Moises, the Menehune coach who is assisted by Brytney Yadao-Lanning, Shawn Wisneski, Ainsley Hori, and Ginny Hori. “It is nice to see the girls playing and competing, again.”
Waimea will travel to the Kaua‘i High School gym, Friday while the Kapa‘a teams travel to the Island School campus at the Wilcox Gymnasium. The first serve for the JV contest serves up at 5 p.m. with the Varsity teams take the floor 25 minutes following the completion of the JV contest.
As a reminder, there are no walk-up ticket sales at the KIF contests.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
