WAIMEA — The Kaua‘i High School Red Raiders were prepared for battle, but when the dust settled, the girls took advantage of a tentative Menehune showing while the boys came close, losing their matchup on a costly error Wednesday night
WAIMEA — The Kaua‘i High School Red Raiders were prepared for battle, but when the dust settled, the girls took advantage of a tentative Menehune showing while the boys came close, losing their matchup on a costly error Wednesday night at the Clem Gomes Gym in Waimea.
Led by the mixed plate hits of Tina Moger, the Red Raiders got help from Farren Higley who stirred the pot from the middle enroute to taking a 25-17, 25-21 matchup against the Menehune who were led by the hard hitting of Nue Wong with help from from Malorie Hepa.
Wong, who starred in Waimea’s win against Kapa‘a appeared to have worked on getting more power into her hits, a factor that proved costly early-on, but after some adjustments, was able to get it under control only to have the strong back row performance of Jodi Matsumoto, Tiana Caylor, and Moger dig out the hits.
Arrington, who was also on fire last week, came up with tentative hits up front while digging out the back.
The Red Raider men, on the other hand, fell in three, 26-24, 12-25, 26-24 as they battled throughout only to have victory slip away on a movement error for the fatal Menehune point.
Capitalizing on John Karratti’s rotation out, the Red Raiders built up point leads behind the hitting of Futi Tavana, Kevin Downing, and Garrett Sakimae while relying on Rikki Garma sets.
But, it was the key blocking led by Micah Young and Jonathan Smith that kept the Waimea hits in check and allowed to the Raiders to stay in the chase.
Waimea was led by the hitting of Josh Cabral with strong performances from their middlemen, Jeremy McDown and Casey Kaohelaulii with Karratti’s court versatility pulling the team together.
Of note in the Waimea win were some solid hits by Bryan Hayashi and Timmothy Mattos who subbed in for Karratti in the back row.
In the JV contests, Waimea handed the Kaua‘i JV girls their first defeat of the season, 18-25, 25-24, 15-7, the defeat coming on a costly service error from which the JV women could not recover.
Waimea controlled the JV boys games, 25-22, 25-16.
Saturday’s games move to the Bernice Hundley Gym in Kapa‘a where the Warriors will host the Red Raiders with the JV contest starting at 3 p.m., and the varsity contests starting no earlier than 5:30 p.m.
