Kalaheo’s basketball team won a state championship by playing anyone and everyone in the preseason, so its volleyball team figures the approach will work just as well.

Kalaheo kicked off what will be a rugged week with wins over Kaiser and McKinley at McKinley on Tuesday. Because many of the Mustangs were on that basketball team, they didn’t have a preseason for volleyball. They are making up for it now.

"Some of these guys came off a state championship for basketball, they are competitors," Kalaheo head coach Ed Chun said. "It is one of my best teams as far as attitude and effort, so I know they can handle the schedule. We’re not looking to go out there and win this week. We are looking for the experience that will make us better."

Kalaheo gets today off before playing three matches in three hours at the Hawaii Boys Volleyball Invitational hosted by ‘Iolani. They play two more league games on Friday and will play for as long as they advance in the tournament on Saturday. And it is not like they will be eating cupcakes. The Mustangs play Hawaii Baptist, Santa Monica (Calif.) and University on Thursday. Both Kaiser and McKinley, which will join Kalaheo in the tournament, pushed the Mustangs on Tuesday.

All three teams showed up at McKinley’s Student Council Gymnasium, but only Kalaheo emerged with its perfect record intact.

The Mustangs beat Kaiser 25-23, 25-18 before squeezing past McKinley 23-25, 25-23, 15-9. The Cougars beat the Tigers 25-20, 23-25, 15-13 behind seven kills by Daniel Fraser to open the festivities.

Kalaheo improved to 4-0 after the two sweeps, while Kaiser walked out of the building 4-1 and McKinley dropped to 2-2.

Silia Tucker led Kalaheo with six kills in the win over Kaiser, while Luke Owens, Kupa‘a Harrison and Sam Orcutt each contributed five. Fraser led Kaiser with five kills, but had only one in the second set.

"(Kalaheo was) very impressive to me," Kaiser coach Jon Stanley said. "After hearing that they lost two star players, I thought we might have a chance, but they are very athletic and well coached."

Kalaheo lost Nainoa Frank and Reeve Troberg from its state tournament team last year, both of them because of injury.

The Mustangs then needed everything they had to get past scrappy McKinley. The Tigers kept sending the ball back to Kalaheo’s side and fed Brandon Walker when they could. Walker, a senior who is in only his second year of volleyball, confused Kalaheo’s block for 11 kills, seven of them in the second set.

"He’s one of the big reasons why we are where we are right now," McKinley coach Chad Giesseman said. "We know we can beat these kinds of teams, we just have to keep our heads up and keep fighting."

McKinley is playing this week without one if its top players, Jerry Wu, who has a broken wrist and won’t be back until next week.

McKinley was just short without him. Orcutt had four of his 11 kills in the third set and Anthony Rowan had three of his seven kills in the same frame.

"We came in real flat and didn’t control the rock," Chun said.