There may not be a more aptly named volleyball player in the state than Kamehameha’s Faith Maafala.

With her team already one set in the hole and facing a deficit of seven points in the second, Maafala refused to frown. She looked each teammate in the eye and gave them a look that said, "We can do this."

And they did.

"We have faced that situation before," Maafala said. "I knew we were going to pick each other up."

The top-seeded Warriors fought off an inspired Kahuku squad and the loud crowd it brought with it for a 25-27, 25-22, 25-18, 25-14 win in the Division I quarterfinals of the New City Nissan/HHSAA Girls Volleyball State Championships on Wednesday night on the Kamehameha-Hawaii campus.

Maafala put Kahuku away in the beginning of the fourth set when she served 13 straight points, three of them on consecutive aces. The Red Raiders tried to fight back, but the deficit was too much. After riding a wave of emotion in the first three sets, the bubble simply burst.

"I think the game had already got in our heads at that point," Kahuku coach Tehani Fiatoa said. "Someone like (Maafala), who will stare you down, I think it really got into our heads. Faith is really good at what she does, not just physically."

Maafala’s pre-serve routine includes staring at the defense, but she wasn’t trying to intimidate anyone. She was simply trying to coexist with Kahuku’s loud crowd, which went full blast for the entire match.

"I was just trying to focus, all focus," Maafala said. "The noise was hard to block out, coach Chris (Blake) always tells us to limit the noise and that’s all I did. It really was hard to do, I know some girls on Kahuku."

The Red Raiders made it seem as if Kamehameha wasn’t even there in the first set, riding their emotion to a 24-all tie that turned to a 25-24 advantage when Kamehameha was guilty of an infraction. Adora Anae, who led Kahuku with 16 kills, hit a ball long but Sinamoni Tonga buried a kill to regain the advantage and Kamehameha’s Tiyana Hallums hit long to put Kamehameha in a hole for the second straight match. The Warriors dropped the first two sets to Punahou before rallying to win the ILH championship last week.

"I think in the big picture of our season our girls were put through a lot of adversity," Blake said. "This match is only going to help us. Kahuku is a great team and we are just happy to get out of here with a ‘W.’"

Alohi Robins-Hardy led the Warriors with 13 kills and Hallums added 11.

Kahuku kept pushing Kamehameha in the second until the Warriors finally made a stand with Taylor Takeda and Maafala at the service line. They trimmed a 7-point lead down to two and finally caught up 20-20 on an ace by Maafala. The teams traded points after that, but Kahuku began making errors and lost the set on a lift call. The Red Raiders led the third set until Kamehameha caught them at 11 and passed them pretty easily. Kahuku had 36 errors in the match to Kamehameha’s 21.

"We didn’t have as quick a start as we hoped to," Kamehameha’s Kealani Browne said. "It was kind of like a warm-up, but once we got through that we were fine."

The Warriors move on to play Moanalua tonight at the Kamehameha-Hawaii gym.

MOANALUA 3, KAMEHAMEHA-MAUI 0

Silerolia Gaogao put on a show for Na Menehune, bouncing back from some initial adversity to pound down 18 kills and drop the Warriors out of the winner’s bracket, 27-25, 25-15, 25-10.

Na Menehune scraped by the first set when Gaogao rose high above the net and buried a kill to tie it at 25. Charity Sandag then committed a hitting error and Gaogao responded with an ace to end it.

Kamehameha-Maui never had a chance after that, as Moanalua ran up leads of 11-3 in the second set and 17-3 in the third. Senior Patricia Batoon led the Warriors with nine kills, despite playing less than half of the match because Moanalua ran through Kamehameha-Maui’s serve with ease.

MILILANI 3, AIEA 0

The Trojans cruised past Na Alii 25-17, 25-15, 25-9 at the Keaau High gym. Second-seeded Mililani faces Punahou in tonight’s second semifinal at Kamehameha-Hawaii.

PUNAHOU 3, KAMEHAMEHA-HAWAII 0

The two-time defending Division I champion Buffanblu swept the Warriors in straight sets, 25-11, 25-22, 25-17.

Punahou, the ILH runner-up, plays Mililani in tonight’s second semifinal at Kamehameha-Hawaii.