Kamehameha sweeps

All year, Tiyana Hallums explained her over-the-top celebrations as cheering for her team. Well now she has something huge to celebrate.

"This is the closest team I have ever played on," Hallums said. "It’s so surreal to be standing here right now."

Kamehameha blitzed Punahou 25-19, 25-20, 25-15 on the Kamehameha-Hawaii campus on Friday to earn its 19th state title at the New City Nissan/HHSAA Division Igirls volleyball state championship.

"They were so focused," Kamehameha coach Chris Blake said. "They knew they weren’t going to let Punahou take what they felt was rightfully theirs and bring back the championship trophy. I think our leaders were going to make sure that was going to happen."

The Warriors avenged their only loss this season, and more importantly, stopped Punahou’s string of two straight state titles. Blake matched former Kamehameha coach Dan Kitashima with his seventh state championship. Blake was on Kitashima’s staff for five of those seven titles. Throw in one with Ann Kang, and Blake has done this 13 times.

"To be mentioned in such great company is a great honor," Blake said. "(Kitashima) was a great mentor; I have had a lot of great mentors who have helped to develop this program."

The Warriors started the massacre from the first point, when Hallums buried a kill in the corner. Kamehameha went up 10-2 from there after three more kills by Hallums and two more from Alohi Robins-Hardy, who dished out assists on each of Hallums’ kills. The best Punahou could do after that is cut the margin to four, and they ran out of time when Remo Gaogao served one long to end the first set.

Punahou had not dropped a set in the tournament to that point.

"Our goal was always to play our best match at the last match of the year and I think we did," Blake said. "We frustrated Punahou. We had an idea what they wanted to do and the girls executed that game plan."

Punahou’s McKenna Rose Granato was held to 10 kills to go with 10 errors and the Buffanblu hit only .098.

"We just wanted to take care of our side of the court," libero Mia Heirakuji said. "Coming from last year and losing to Punahou two years in a row, we wanted it so bad."

The Buffanblu fought back after the setback, playing the second set tight and trading points with the Warriors until the passing began to break down. Senior Faith Ma’afala buried a kill to give the Warriors a 21-19 lead and Hallums followed with three more to bring about aloha ball. Ma’afala closed out the set with a little looper that caught the corner and the Buffanblu were in a position where they had to beat Kamehameha three times in a row to retain their championship.

"I’m speechless right now, this feels so good," Ma’afala said. "It’s so awesome, we knew what needed to be done to beat a great team and we knew if we stuck together it would work out."

The third set was more of the same for the Warriors, as they took a 12-11 lead and never gave it back. By the time it got to be 21-15, Kamehameha was riding a wave of emotion that Punahou couldn’t stop. Ma’afala buried a sonic boom of a kill, Kealani Browne put a crater in the floor on a set from Robins-Hardy and Taylor Takeda ended it with an ace that Kelly Matthews couldn’t get to. Kamehameha’s celebration looked like any other until after they went through the postgame handshake line, when they went completely bananas.

"I can’t even process what is going on right now, I am so proud of my team," Hallums said. "It was all because of them, the passes, the sets, everything they did was on it."

Hallums had 12 kills for the Warriors and Robins-Hardy put down 13 with 18 assists and led the team with 16 digs. Heirakuji had 15 digs, many of them on hot shots from Granato, Ma’afala had 12 and Hallums added 10. Reyn Akiu had seven of Kamehameha’s 64 digs.

"They definitely won the ball-control game," Punahou coach Tanya Fuamatu-Anderson said. "Their whole team had a great match. Kudos to the girls who were flying all over the court and digging balls like crazy. For our first year, it was a good year."

Third place

MILILANI 2, MOANALUA 1

The OIA champion Trojans outlasted Na Menehune 25-23, 26-27, 15-11 to take third place.

Sarah Liva put down nine kills and Jordyn Keamo added eight to go along with 23 assists as Mililani downed Moanalua for the third time this season.

Fifth place

KAHUKU 2, KAMEHAMEHA-HAWAII 0

Adora Anae had eight kills and Talia Afalava added seven to lead the Red Raiders past the Warriors 25-20, 25-19 in the fifth-place match.