WAIMEA — After falling just short of winning the season’s first round, the Menehune girls started the second round with a win. Waimea High School’s varsity girls volleyball team defeated Island School, 3-0, Tuesday evening in its home gym. Menehune
WAIMEA — After falling just short of winning the season’s first round, the Menehune girls started the second round with a win.
Waimea High School’s varsity girls volleyball team defeated Island School, 3-0, Tuesday evening in its home gym. Menehune head coach Chad Delanoza said the team had some extra help during the off week in preparation for the second round.
“One of the former players that came out to help us during the bye week was trying to instill in them that it’s one play at a time. It’s always on to the next play and not sit and dwell on what happened because you cannot get that back,” Delanoza said. “As far as what happened in that first round, we cannot get that back, but we still need to move forward and put a better effort in the second round. That’s what I’m hoping for, and they showed glimpses of that during practices.”
Waimea (5-2 KIF, 1-0 second round) won in straight sets, 25-6, 25-8 and 25-13.
Menehune senior outside hitter Ariell Aquino-Lazaro had the game-winning kill. She ended the game as Waimea’s leading scorer with nine kills and four aces.
“It’s a great first step, like I told them in the locker room. It contributes to what they’ve done leading up to this match,” Delanoza said. “We don’t take any team for granted whoever it may be. We still got to come out and play.”
Island School (0-7 KIF, 0-1 second round) was halted mostly with attacking errors. Voyagers head coach Brad Sato said communication was an issue for his team.
“Just being consistent in a good way. We had a lack of communication in the beginning, and the game result showed that. Every team needs good communication, and we need that, too,” Sato said. “We just need to prepare more. That’s it. Waimea came out prepared, and their game showed it.”
Senior setter Alyssa Pigao had 18 assists and an ace for Waimea. Freshman setter Leiko Yamauchi had 10 assists and an ace. Junior outside hitter Maria Foisaga recorded seven kills and an ace.
Voyagers sophomore libero Sydney Agudong had two aces for Island School.
The Menehune also won the junior varsity contest in straight sets, 25-18, 25-19 and 25-19.
Waimea will play at Kauai High and Island School will host Kapaa on Friday. The JV games will begin at 5 p.m. and the varsity will follow.
