Despite winning the battle at the net and the match, Kamehameha-Hawaii coach Guy Enriques wasn’t pleased his players couldn’t stop Hawaii Baptist’s smallest hitters.
“The focus is to better our blocking system,” Enriques said after his third-ranked Warriors swept fourth-ranked Hawaii Baptist 25-19, 25-20 on Thursday at the KS Cup. “That’s our No. 1 thing, our primary focus. Winning is the ultimate thing, but we want to be able to No. 1, control the blocking, which we didn’t do very well. We got tooled by the shorter team in the second game.”
KS CUP
At Kamehameha
>> Santa Barbara (Calif.) def. Fountain Valley (Calif.) 22-25, 25-22, 25-16
>> Kamehameha def. Fountain Valley 25-13, 25-17
>> Kamehameha def. Santa Barbara 27-25, 23-25, 25-18
>> Hawaii Baptist def. Edison (Calif.) 25-22, 22-25, 31-29
>> KS-Hawaii def. Hawaii Baptist 25-19, 25-20
>> Edison (Calif.) def. KS-Hawaii 25-20, 17-25, 25-18
KS-Hawaii outblocked HBA nine to three, with Jarvis Benito in on six blocks. Blocking is a focal point for KS-Hawaii on its long road trip through California and Oahu. The Warriors played 17 matches over a two-week span in California, went home for three days, then stopped off at this week’s Kapalama Cup. The three-day tournament hosted by Kamehameha features six teams, three of them from California.
“If we want to get far in here, we have to be a better blocking team,” said Enriques, who added that blocking helped his team go .500 in California. “We’ve never hurt on ball control. I think we got plenty offense to do the job.”
KS-Hawaii’s size at the net, compounded by mental fatigue, hurt HBA throughout the match.
HBA rallied for a three-set victory over Edison (Calif.) before losing to KS-Hawaii. The Warriors later lost in three to Edison.
“It played a big factor,” HBA coach Teoni Obrey said of the block. “They’re well coached, block was formed, they knew who they wanted to serve. That took us out of a lot of things.”
After committing a slew of errors in Set 1, Obrey switched up his lineup in Set 2 with smaller outside hitters. The Eagles rallied from a seven-point deficit to tie it at 16 after Michael Johnson’s kill. Kainalu Whitney and Addison Enriques responded with kills for the Warriors and Benito’s ace put KS-Hawaii ahead 20-17.
“They competed, that’s all that we want from our guys,” Obrey said of his squad that played in Set 2. “If all 14 guys can compete on every point, we can be pretty good.”
HBA got no closer than two points the rest of the way. Benito and Chase Carter teamed up for a block to end the match.
“We try to pick your best hitter and make sure he has two (blockers) on him every time,” coach Enriques said.
Addison Enriques, Nalu Kahapea and Isaiah Laeha led KS-Hawaii with four kills each. Caleb Fisher led HBA with seven kills and Johnson added five.
Kamehameha, the home team, was the only school to get through the first day unbeaten.
