Kawika is a junior setter/outside hitter for defending state champion Iolani, while Erik is a freshman defensive specialist for perennial powerhouse Punahou. Both are key elements to their undefeated (2-0) teams.

Kawika, at 6 feet 3, always stays in the Raiders' rotation as an outside hitter in the front row and a setter in the back.

The Raiders stayed unbeaten with a 25-23, 27-26 victory over Kamehameha last Saturday.

"He's hitting right now for Iolani because he has to, but I think he has a future as a college setter," said Dave, who is in his 30th season guiding the Rainbow Wahine. "Physically, he has very good skills and he sees things other players may not be able to see."

Erik is only in his second month of varsity volleyball, but Punahou coach Peter Balding said the 5-foot-10 freshman's skill level has been so far advanced he could have made the team as a seventh-grader.

"Fundamentally, he's really sound and I think his best asset is between his ears," Balding said. "He always finds a way to win a point. He's got 12-15 different serves, and he's not afraid to take chances."

Skills and confidence are things the Shoji boys learned at an early age, in large part by being around their dad's hugely successful UH program.

Erik said he remembers playing "balloon volleyball" against Kawika at home, and his brother says they played a lot of one-on-one courtside at UH practices while waiting for their dad to finish work.

Kawika said the thing he learned most from the Rainbow Wahine is their work ethic.

"The intensity, that's what I picked up," Kawika said. "I learned that even in practices, you have to go hard all the time."

The brothers developed a competitive edge from playing each other in various sports and board games growing up, and from being teammates in club volleyball. But Oct. 9 will be the first time they face each other in a varsity match that counts.

"We lost to them in the preseason, and he aced me," Kawika said. "He let me know about it afterward, but I told him it's never going to happen again."

Erik called it "a good moment."

"We hadn't had a chance to play against each other (in varsity volleyball), and I wasn't even supposed to serve him but I did," Erik said. "We've had some intense battles before, and sometimes we talk in a competitive way, about bragging rights."

The rivalry is intensified because they go to rival schools, but Dave and wife, Mary, did not see that as an issue when they enrolled each boy in kindergarten.

"They're each at the school that is right for them — that's the best way I can put it," said Mary, who teaches at Punahou. "I color-code my calendar to keep track of all the practices and games, and it does get busy."

Kawika is a straight-A student at Iolani, with advanced placement courses included in his class schedule. Erik also has excelled academically at Punahou.

And like Dave — a three-sport athlete in high school — their athletic talent is not limited to volleyball. Kawika was a key reserve on Iolani's state champion basketball team last winter and shot an even-par 72 at O'ahu Country Club in the first round of the ILH golf championships two months later.

Kawika said his handicap is 6 — same as Dave's.

"He has the ability to (score) really low, which I don't," Dave says. "That day at O'ahu was rainy, with 30 mph winds, and he still shot his best round."

Erik, meanwhile, has been one of Hawai'i's top tennis players in his age group and played No. 1 singles on Punahou's ILH championship intermediate team.

But volleyball is the Shojis' common thread (Mary coached Punahou's intermediate boys until this year), and it definitely will be the focus Oct. 9.

"After every game, we all talk and most of the conversation is about volleyball," Erik said. "It keeps us together."