On Wednesday night — after fighting some sluggishness — the Warriors, ranked eighth in the Advertiser's poll, proved on the court that they deserve to be headed to the Big Island.

Kamehameha showed depth with a balanced attack that went to senior front-line force Dreanne Shaw economically all night in a 25-19, 25-19, 21-25, 25-10 win over King Kekaulike at Na Ali'i's gym.

Kamehameha improved to 8-0 in the Maui Interscholastic League one night after its closest pursuer, Baldwin, fell to 3-3, which clinched the Division I regular-season championship, and the state tournament berth that goes with it, for the Warriors.

King Kekaulike fell to 2-5. The Division I state tournament is scheduled for Oct. 31 to Nov. 3 on the Big Island.

Shaw had a match-high 11 kills, Telissa Tua and Whitney Santos added 10 kills apiece, and Makana Rosete added nine. Kamehameha also got four blocks from freshman Ginger Long, 22 digs from Kayla-Al Kaluau and 19 digs from Kelsey Awai.

Still, with 15 service errors and several other flat stretches, the Warriors have a few things to work on as they prepare to finish the regular season with matches against No. 7 Seabury Hall (7-0) and Moloka'i (6-1), both Division II teams.

"We are trying some new things and trying to spread the offense a little bit,'' Kamehameha coach Charles Spencer said to The Maui News. "We know that everybody knows that Dreanne is still kind of our go-to girl, so we are trying to get everybody mixed into the offense a little bit, mix in the middles more, trying to get a little more balance.''

The plan to spread out the offense worked, but not without a few slips.

"I think one of our biggest problems — we try to play an up-tempo game — but we have a problem of kind of falling asleep and kind of playing to the tempo of the other team,'' Spencer said. "We still need to work on that.''

After breaking away from a 5-5 tie in Game 1 with a 13-7 run, the Warriors let King Kekaulike close within 23-19 before a kill by Rosete and an ace by Santos ended it.

Game 2 was tied for the last time at 10-10, and the Warriors opened a 20-15 lead. A Tua kill ended the game.

In Game 3, the Warriors had a 7-3 advantage before Na Ali'i caught them at 10-10. King Kekaulike, which got six kills apiece from Elayna Hefele and Alexa Fell, kept the momentum on its side to take an 18-13 lead.

Kamehameha awoke to tie the game at 20-20, but Na Ali'i buckled down to win the game on a long serve by Kamehameha.

Im Game 4, the Warriors played like they can, pulling away from a 4-4 tie to build a 23-9 lead, and ended the match in 1 hour, 41 minutes. Shaw and Tua took over in the final game, combining for 10 kills.

"Kamehameha has a lot of girls who play 10 of 12 months out of the year,'' King Kekaulike coach Kaipo Thomas said. "And it is not just the starting six, but maybe 10 or 12. That makes a really big difference. They just have a lot of depth.''

Thomas said with three regular-season matches left, his team is looking toward the MIL tournament, scheduled for Oct. 18-20 at Kamehameha.

"We are practicing for the X's and O's, but we are also coaching for character, trying to get a lot of the girls in,'' Thomas said. "We have a lot of seniors (seven) and this is a three-month experience they will remember for the rest of their lives, so I don't want it to be sitting on brown chairs.''

Kamehameha knows that it doesn't get any easier from here as his team now takes on the top two teams from Division II to wrap up the regular season.

"Those are pretty tough teams, they have great athletes,'' Spencer said. "It comes down to we have to execute like we can.''