LIHU‘E — Kapa‘a High School girls volleyball came from behind Friday night to spoil the Kaua‘i High School’s Senior Night festivities at the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation girls volleyball games at the Kaua‘i High gym.
Senior Night, the last home game of the host school’s season play in girls volleyball, honored the three graduating seniors on the Red Raider team — Elise Yukimura, Jaclyn Oshiro, and Shania Kelley — who each received goodwill gifts from the visiting Kapa‘a High School team following the player introductions.
Each of the seniors saw ample action on the court, to the delight of their parents, relatives and friends, but the effort fell short as the Kaua‘i varsity saw their winning ways disrupted by the Lady Warriors in four sets — 27-25, 21-25, 21-25, and 20-25.
Earlier in the evening, the Red Raider junior varsity remained left looking for their first “W” of the season — 12-25, 13-25, and 10-25 — as the JV Lady Warriors kept its undefeated record intact.
Scores from the Waimea Menehune visiting Island School were not available Saturday.
The varsity Lady Warriors blossomed late as the Red Raiders pulled away from a 9-9 stalemate in the first set, only to have Kapa‘a come back from a 17-22 deficit to knot the contest at 25-25. Back to back court miscues gave the nod to Kaua‘i High.
Olivia Malafu and Kanoe Haneberg, the two promising buds in the Warrior garden, started to unfurl, nourished by good court movement from Toni Jordyn Umalla and support from Olivia Jenkins, Norma Tuulangavalu, Kyla Hopton and Sierra Summer.
Kapa‘a broke away from a 20-20 deadlock in the second set on a Malafu move in the middle, and despite a crowd-pleasing hammer from Yukimura, Malafu moved Kapa‘a forward on her hit followed by a block from the tandem efforts of Haneberg and Tuulangavalu. A passing error by the Raiders sealed the second set.
Undaunted, the Red Raiders stayed close in the remaining two sets before Kapa‘a pulled away from a 10-10 deadlock in the fourth set on a string of six unanswered points by Vaiani Dubocage that was loaded with hits from Jenkins, Malafu, a Dubocage ace and some Red Raider hitting errors for the 17-11 go-ahead.
Kaua‘i answered with senior Oshiro serving up a string of four points that included hits from Kelley and Keira Caoagas to pull within two points, 16-18, and start a see-saw point exchange until a Red Raider service error gave Kapa‘a some breathing room with Jenkins’ smack giving Kapa‘a a 24-19 margin.
Kaua‘i wouldn’t go down, and Yukimura delivered an answer spiced with strong fan support, 20-24, only to have Malafu cut the excitement short on a solid whack down the middle.
The KIF girls volleyball season enters its final week of competition Tuesday when Kaua‘i will travel to the Clem Gomes Gym to take on Waimea. Kapa‘a will host Island School at the Bernice Hundley Gym.
The JV games serve up from 5:30 p.m. at both sites, with the varsity games starting 25 minutes following the completion of the JV contests.
