WAIMEA — The Waimea boys came back from an opening-set loss to take the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation boys volleyball match in four games, 25-27, 25-11, 25-10 and 25-16, Saturday night at the Clem Gomes Gym in Waimea. Kapa‘a was missing
WAIMEA — The Waimea boys came back from an opening-set loss to take the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation boys volleyball match in four games, 25-27, 25-11, 25-10 and 25-16, Saturday night at the Clem Gomes Gym in Waimea.
Kapa‘a was missing four players, three of them starters, but got step-up play from Stephen Greenleaf, Preston Ikehara-Yasay and Kelvin Villanueva. Kekoa Prem, his knee still heavily bandaged from an injury suffered at the state basketball championships, made two tentative entries into the fray.
That provided the court leadership for the Warriors, who were missing the services of middle blocker Sean Shigematsu, strong hitter and setter Kekoa Colipano, and libero J.P. Delos Santos.
The Warriors came back to knot the first set on back-to-back hits by Ikehara-Yasay and Greenleaf, respectively, for the 23-23 tie, and sealed the contest on two consecutive Waimea hitting errors, 27-25.
But that attack could not be sustained as Waimea came back to control the next three games behind the combined talents of David Ka‘ohelauli‘i, Keaka Canute and Quinn Gonsalves sealing the Jared Matsumoto sets.
Brenden Cristobal and David Hesapene mixed in the action, Cristobal getting several key plays up the middle in blocks as well as pushes.
Waimea is 3-0 in the second round, 7-0 overall, while Kapa‘a fell to 0-3 in the second round and 0-7 overall. Kaua‘i High is 1-1 in the second round and 3-3 overall, and needs to beat Waimea in Lihu‘e on Wednesday to keep any title hopes alive. Earlier, Waimea’s junior-varsity squad took two of three games from Kapa‘a, 25-18, 19-25 and 25-12.
