KAPAA — Kapaa High School’s boys volleyball team held off a late Red Raiders rally to win the first round of the season with its 3-2 victory over Kauai on Tuesday evening. With the win, Kapaa (5-0) also remains unbeaten
KAPAA — Kapaa High School’s boys volleyball team held off a late Red Raiders rally to win the first round of the season with its 3-2 victory over Kauai on Tuesday evening.
With the win, Kapaa (5-0) also remains unbeaten in the season. The team won its meet against Kauai by scores of 25-23, 25-22, 22-25, 22-25, 15-7.
“It is nice to be in the driver’s seat for the first round. So, we’ll take that,” said Warriors head coach Kapule Kaona.
Kapaa senior Johnny Joel said the team was overconfident after earning a two-set lead and didn’t know how to react when it found itself trailing in the third and fourth sets.
“In the third set, in our heads we thought we had it in the bag,” said the Warriors middle hitter. “We were too confident. We just froze up when we found that we were losing.”
Kaona said his team’s demeanor was “pretty down” after Kauai evened up the score.
During a closely contested final set, Kapaa won a long rally to lead 10-7. At that point, momentum shifted back to Kapaa’s side.
“(After winning that point), we just felt confident about ourselves that we could do it. Like nobody could stop us,” Joel said.
Before evening up the score, Kauai head coach Merrill Carvalho said his players were tense during the first two sets because they knew what was at stake.
“I think my boys wanted to play as perfect as possible,” Carvalho said. “It showed early and often, a lot of mental errors. We just had no energy. We just played flat.”
Kauai junior Kalawaia Judd said the team was low on itself after losing the first two sets.
“Everybody was down, then coach Merrill pulled us together. He told us that we have nothing to lose,” Judd said, who plays left front and back for the team. “Kapaa had it all and we just had to take it.
“We scrambled a lot more. We played with a lot of passion,” he added about winning the third and fourth sets.
Judd said his team was caught off guard in the last set.
“We didn’t know what had hit us,” he said. “It was really quick, but I’m pretty sure next time we’re going to be good.”
Both teams will have one more home game on Friday before the first round officially ends. Kauai (3-2) will play against Waimea and Kapaa will play Island School.
The junior varsity games will start at 5 p.m. and the varsity games will start no earlier than 6:30 p.m.
