KAUA‘I — All season, the Kaua‘i Red Raiders volleyball team has worked to limit its unforced errors and let its high octane offense take over.
After a nail-biting opening set, that finally happened, and now the Red Raiders are KIF champions.
The Red Raiders edged by the Waimea Menehune in the first set and proceeded to rout the Menehune in the following two to wrap up the KIF title, 25-23, 25-13, 25-16, Tuesday night at Kaua‘i High School.
“It’s been a long time coming for this team,” an emotional Merril Carvalho, Kaua‘i’s coach, said. “It’s an awesome feeling to see these girls work so hard and win like they did tonight.”
The first set opened with the Menehune taking a quick 4-1 lead highlighted by a powerful kill from Mariyah Oliver.
But the Raiders fought back and tied at four-all. The two teams then played cat and mouse until the Menehune arrived at a 22-19 lead.
The Raiders rebounded with a 6-1 run, with Ashley Remelb leading the way with a kill and ace, to take the set.
“It says a lot about these seniors and underclassmen that they never quit even when they’re down,” Carvalho said.
With the tight first set out of the way, the Red Raider offense opened up in the second and never looked back.
The Raiders used a 15-1 run to put the Menehune on their heels. During the run, the Raiders saw kills from five different members of the team. Carvalho attributed this spread offense to the precision setting of senior Jennifer Grady.
“Our setter (Grady) has a lot of confidence in our hitters. She’ll mix it up,” he said.
Grady agreed with her coach, saying the Raiders have many outlets for her to set to.
“The whole team played really good and we needed all of us today,” Grady said. “We’re a stacked team. Everybody that gets in can contribute.”
The Raiders jumped out of the gates in the third set and looked to be cruising, but the Menehune fought back to bring the score to within a point at 8-9. But in the end, Waimea just couldn’t keep pace with the Raiders.
The Menehune were led by freshman Keisha Shimatsu who had 5 kills in the final set.
“We’re a young team and we’ve been asking a lot of the underclassmen to do different things for us this season,” Waimea head coach Chad Delanoza said. “We fought hard to the very end and that’s all I was asking them to do. We had a great season.”
Delanoza said the season has been very valuable to his young players, saying it’s been a learning experience since the first game.
“We had to grow and learn as a team,” he said. “Tonight, our youthness took over a little bit but I’m still proud of what we did.”
Carvalho said the young Menehune team will be a force to be reckoned with next season.
“They’re always going to be scrappy,” Carvalho said. “Tonight, unfortunately they just made a lot more errors than we did. But they’ll be ready next year.”
With the win, the Red Raiders will move on to the state tournament beginning next Wednesday on O‘ahu.
Carvalho said in the state tournament he expects to find teams with more height and athleticism than the Red Raiders, but in the end, he expects to lean on what earned Kaua‘i the KIF title.
“I think we’ll be short as far as height goes,” he said. “But the one thing we do have is our scrappiness.”
