OIA East's top seeds upset in boys volleyball
By Stacy Kaneshiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
Michael Newmeyer had 18 kills to lead Leilehua's upset of East co-champion Castle, 15-10, 15-11, in an O'ahu Interscholastic Association boys' volleyball quarterfinal last night at McKinley.
Combined with Campbell's, 13-15, 15-3, 15-6, upset of the other East co-champion, Kalaheo, Wednesday's semifinals at McKinley will be an all-Western Division affair.
In the other quarterfinals, defending OIA champion Pearl City swept East fourth seed Roosevelt, 15-12, 15-4, and West co-champion Mililani beat East third seed McKinley, 15-7, 15-10.
The West co-champion Chargers (10-1) will face the West third seed Sabers (10-2) at 6 p.m. and the Trojans (10-1) will play West fourth seed Mules (9-3) at 7:30.
"Michael Newmeyer was our go-to guy," Leilehua coach Ernest Balignasay said.
All of yesterday's winners qualified for the league's four state tournament berths.
In the Pearl City match, the outcome was not indicative of the Chargers' struggle throughout the match.
"We've been doing that a lot lately," Chargers' coach Reid Shigemasa said. "I don't know what team is going to show up. It's all depending on how they feel. We can't be doing that. We have to get in tune and we need to focus again."
In the first game, the co-Western Division champion Chargers took commanding leads of 9-3 and 12-5, only to watch the Rough Riders tie the game at 12. The Chargers got their next two points on Roosevelt mistakes (four hits and an illegal hit) before Michael Adams' kill finished the game.
Although the Chargers won the second game handily, it wasn't without a struggle. Sides changed 24 times, as the Chargers could not muster a consistent attack.
"Everything's supposed to be real sweet and nice and run smoothly, but as you can see, we're real sporadic," Shigemasa said.
Opposite Jonathan Charette led the Chargers with eight kills, and Elsworth Kaanaana added six.
In girls' quarterfinals at Radford, it was almost the same story for Moanalua. After playing like co-East champions with a 15-2 first-game win, the Menehunes struggled. They led by as much as 8-3, only to see the tenacious Golden Hawks tie the game at 11. Moanalua then traded sideouts four times in scoring four unanswered points to claim the match, 15-11.
"I think the second game, we weren't coming together as a team," Moanalua senior middle blocker Patti Hardimon said. "Individually, we weren't doing our roles. We have a saying, 'If we do our roles individually, then we'll come together as a team.' "
Hardimon led Moanalua with 11 kills on 12 swings. Ashley Gandauli had three of the team's seven aces, including game point in game one.
The Menehunes (10-1) will meet West champion Pearl City (11-0) in a 6 p.m. semifinal on Wednesday at Radford.
The Chargers advanced by beating 'Aiea, 10-15, 15-12, 15-9.
In other quarterfinals, East third seed Kahuku ousted West runner-up Mililani, 15-7, 15-7, and co-East champion Kalani defeated Kalaheo, 15-8, 16-14.
The Red Raiders (10-2) will play the Falcons (10-1) at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. It is a rematch of last year's OIA championship, which Kahuku won. Kahuku also handed Kalani its only loss during the regular season.
The winners of the semifinals advance to the OIA championships set for Nov. 7 at the Stan Sheriff Center. The losers will play for third place.
Pearl City, the defending OIA girls champion, is the only unbeaten varsity team left in the O'ahu public schools league for either gender.
BIG ISLAND
• St. Joseph wins title: St. Joseph defeated Kealakehe, 15-8, 15-4, yesterday to win the Big Island Interscholastic Federation regular season championship, its first girls title in school history, according to co-head coach Rachelle Hanohano .
The Cardinals finished with a 13-0 record and will be seeded No. 1 in the upcoming BIIF tournament.
