ʻIolani defeats Kamehameha for the D-I state title

Top-dog status in Division I is bouncing back and forth like a ping-pong ball, and it’s on ‘Iolani’s side now after Saturday night’s upset of Kamehameha.

The Raiders cashed in with a 25-23, 25-21, 25-18 victory in the final of the New City Nissan/HHSAA Girls Volleyball State Championships at Blaisdell Arena.

It was a long road to the top for ‘Iolani (13-5), which lost to the defending champion Warriors (14-2) in four out of five regular-season matches before winning four straight against all comers in this week’s tournament to get back the crown it won in 2016.

Elena Oglivie was the ultimate difference-maker for ‘Iolani, which is bringing the koa trophy back to the school for the third time. She had 28 kills and nine digs and was in on four blocks for the Raiders, who entered the match at No. 2 in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Top 10 and No. 8 in the USA Today Super 25.

‘Iolani coach Kainoa Obrey conceded it was in the plan for setter Kristen McDaniel to go to Oglivie more than usual.

“Absolutely, she is our big hitter,” Obrey said. “We gotta feed her some balls and she went off tonight. We’ll definitely take that. The sets were awesome. Kristen did such a great job giving hittable balls to all of our hitters — middle, right, left. It put them (the Warriors) in tough situations.”

McDaniel finished with 35 assists and three block assists. Mokihana Tufono added six kills, Grace Wee dug up 20 balls and Sasha Petticord contributed three block assists and a solo block.

Kamehameha, which came in at No. 1 in the Star-Advertiser poll and No. 7 in the Super 25, failed in its attempt at a 22nd championship in the 50 years of the event. The Warriors kept their string of 16 straight appearances in the final alive.

“They (the Raiders) played lights out and did the things it takes to win, ” Warriors coach Chris Blake said. “We weren’t able to do a lot of things that we were doing through the course of the year. A lot of that was based on ‘Iolani’s execution. They were hungry and fired up and deserved to get the ‘W’ tonight.”

Kamehameha got 15 kills from Braelyn Akana and 11 kills and 15 digs from Keonilei Akana.

There was a tentative moment for the Raiders in the first set. Their 24-20 lead evaporated to one point, 24-23. But they got through it with the next point on Oglivie’s kill that hit the top of the net and rolled down horizontally along the net on the other side, out of reach of the Kamehameha defense.

That win fired up the Raiders even more, and they prevailed in the second set, even though the Warriors trimmed a 17-12 deficit to 19-18. In the third, ‘Iolani built a huge 19-10 lead and got home easily from there.

“Its always a battle when we play each other,” Obrey said. “Fortunately, we played a little better tonight.”

Added ‘Iolani’s Wee, “It’s crazy. We were the underdogs, but we all really believed in each other and that really helped us go through.”