It was almost as if Corona Del Mar coach Steve Conti picked somebody up out of the blue and inserted him into the second set of Saturday night’s Clash of the Titans boys volleyball tournament match.
Jake Meyer, a 6-foot-7 middle, did not make a dent in previous tournament matches, but on Friday he had a big hand in the Sea Kings’ 26-24, 20-25, 25-17, 25-21 win over Kamehameha-Hawaii at Punahou’s Hemmeter Fieldhouse.
“Yeah, I found him on the beach down in Waikiki,” Conti said jokingly. “He’s certainly long and athletic. He’s really good on serve-receive, too. Our other starting middle (Mitch Haly) tweaked his back and Jake is gonna be a guy we look to in the future, so we wanted to give him some experience.”
Meyer finished with 12 kills and three blocks in only three sets and made the Warriors’ defensive task a nightmare.
“We couldn’t decide on whether to go outside or inside and whatever we decided it wasn’t working for us,” said setter Addison Enriques of Kamehameha-Hawaii, the fifth-ranked team in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Top 10.
Whenever they concentrated on Meyer in the middle, it opened up the outside, where Sam Kobrine went to work for 13 kills and Kevin Kobrine for 10.
Meyer did come off the beach, literally, however.
“I love Hawaii, my first time here,” he said. “We’ve been to the beach every single day, the Outrigger Canoe Club for lunch one of the days. It’s been a very good trip. North Shore one of the days, a lot of team bonding stuff, football on the beach.”
As for that unteachable 6-7 frame, he said, “I was predicted to be this height (by doctors), so I don’t know if I’ve maxed out or if I’m going to grow one more inch.”
With 6-5 setter Matt Ctvrtlik (40 assists) helping out with the block along with the 6-6 Haly and Clay Dickinson (also 6-7), the Warriors were not equipped to deal that kind of wall.
Still, they tried. Hitters Isaiah Laeha (18 kills) and Avery Enriques (14 kills), who is Addison’s twin brother, kept Kamehameha-Hawaii in it on the setting of Addison Enriques (34 assists).
The Warriors from the Big Island did something against Corona Del Mar that the No. 1 team in Hawaii could not do, take a set off of the Sea Kings, who swept top-ranked Punahou in three sets on Friday night.
“We heard about that last night (the sweep), so we were saying as long as we get one, we can say something, but we really wanted to beat them just so we could say something, to prove something,” Addison Enriques said. “They (the Sea Kings) are really good.”
In the first set, Laeha’s kill got the Warriors to 23-23 and it was tied at 24-all before a Kevin Kobrine kill and a Laeha hitting error put Corona Del Mar up 1-0 in the match.
Laeha and Avery Enriques were at their most efficient in the second set and Kamehameha-Hawaii broke a 13-13 tie by going on a 9-5 run for a 22-18 edge. Laeha swung away for three kills to help close it out and tie the match 1-1.
After taking a 17-14 edge in the third set, Meyer put down four kills as the visitors from Newport Beach, Calif., went ahead 2 sets to 1.
The Sea Kings broke an 8-8 tie in the decider and never looked back. The Warriors got as close as 20-18 and scrambled to stay in it with a Pukana Vincent block at 24-21, but Sam Kobrine’s kill clinched it.
“(Warriors coach) Guy (Enriques) does a great job with that team,” Conti said. “They’re smart and cagey, scrappy and one of the best teams I’ve seen. Every year we see them they’re like that. And the Enriques boys are a big part of that equation.”
Punahou 3, Mira Costa 2
The Buffanblu’s energy, fueled by a rowdy crowd, was palpable in a thrilling 24-26, 25-23, 20-25, 25-14, 15-8 comeback victory over the Mustangs from Manhattan Beach, Calif., at Hemmeter Fieldhouse.
Wil Stanley led Punahou with 12 kills and Kana‘i Akana added 11 kills and two big solo blocks in the fifth set to steal the match away from Mira Costa.
The Buffanblu have a 5-4 lead over the Mustangs in the Clash of the Titans series that started in 2008.
Akana talked about the renewed vitality of his team and the crowd in the face of defeat with a 2-1 deficit.
“I like to play at 7 (on a 1-10 scale) the whole match and a 10 when it gets to 20 points,” he said. “Get my teammates fired up and I think we all play a little better when we’re all fired up. We were a 10 (for the fourth and fifth sets). We wanted to get a win for the seniors in their last Clash of the Titans match.”
Jackson Wedbush pounded a match-high 18 kills for Mira Costa.
“We’ve got kids with heart,” Punahou coach Rick Tune said. “I think they finally, right in that third set, they said, ‘I need to trust our game plan. I need to trust my teammates. I don’t need to do more than my job responsibility entails.’ ”
