‘Finding Remo’ was part of Punahou’s gameplan

Caryl Kan and Peter Balding might be gone, but the things that make the Punahou girls volleyball team No. 1 remain.

Tanya Fuamatu-Anderson won her first three matches as Punahou’s head coach on the first day of the Ann Kang Invitational Tournament at ‘Iolani on Thursday.

The Buffanblu, ranked No. 1 in the Star-Advertiser’s preseason volleyball poll, didn’t lose a set. Even though they were judged the best in the state after last year’s state championship, the Buffanblu were largely a mystery. They lost Kan, the state player of the year last year, to graduation and Balding, the coach of the year, to a sabbatical. No big deal, they are still Punahou.

"The thing about our kids, they love to compete," Fuamatu-Anderson said. "They have been playing for a long time and a lot of them play year-round. In that sense, it was easy for me to just sit back and watch and evaluate."

She saw her new team beat No. 10 Seabury Hall 25-11, 25-22 to open the tournament and ‘Iolani’s Division II entrant 25-13, 25-14 an hour after that. Seabury Hall was a shell of itself after bringing only seven girls on the trip, so the Buffanblu wouldn’t get their first true test of the year until they met national power Mira Costa (Calif.) in their last match of the first day.

Punahou passed that test with flying colors. The Buffanblu got 13 kills from senior Remo Gaogao on their way to a 25-20, 25-21 win. Neither coach was calling in serves and Mira Costa boss Lisa-Arce Zimmerman called it a scrimmage, but players on both teams gave it all they had. Every point was hotly contested until Punahou’s Kelly Matthews beat Mira Costa middle blocker Katie Rethmeyer to end it.

"It was fun," Gaogao said. "They are very competitive and it was a great game and we clicked and we had great chemistry on the team and it was awesome."

Mira Costa, which has won four national titles and put seven seniors from last year’s team into college, knew it was in for a fight from the outset. The teams traded points in the first set until Punahou took a 7-5 lead and the margin never grew larger than four points. The Mustangs were within 21-20 before Punahou began playing "Finding Remo."

Gaogao put down three successive kills to make it 24-20 and Marissa Behrens ended it with a kill from the middle.

"We knew coming in that as the defending champions they would not have to go far to reload," Arce-Zimmerman said. "I was happy since it was our first scrimmage and we only have three seniors and we weren’t sure how they would react. It was fun to see us play with them."

The second set was the same as the first, with the teams trading points until Punahou took an 8-6 lead. The Buffanblu stayed a step ahead of the Mustangs throughout, and clinged to a 22-20 lead when senior Matthews blasted a ball off Keala Rusher’s chest and Behrens scored one off the tape to make it 24-20. Phina Leilua got one back for Mira Costa, but Matthews ended it with her kill.

The Buffanblu won’t have to get to work so early today, playing No. 5 Moanalua at 4 p.m. while Mira Costa opens at 3 p.m. against Huntington Beach, the tournament’s other undefeated team from the morning session.