Mililani's Candace Soares hits hard. When she finds the holes in the defense like she did last night against Leilehua, chances are she'll get a kill.

Soares had 14 kills and Allie Elliazar added eight as host Mililani beat Leilehua, 21-25, 25-14, 25-13, to clinch the O'ahu Interscholastic Association Red Western Division title.

Mililani, tied for 6th in the Advertiser Top-10 poll, improved to 9-2, while second-place Radford is 7-4. Leilehua dropped to 6-5. All teams in the division play 12 matches.

"For us it means being able to host the first round (in the OIA tournament) and puts us in a position where we can work really hard to get into states. That's what our main goal is," Mililani coach Dexter Young said.

Soares, a 5-foot-8 junior, got off to a slow start, but hammered five kills in the second game and seven in the third.

"She really brought her game tonight in locating her hits. A lot of times she hits right at people but tonight she found the holes," Young said.

Soares also had only two hitting errors.

"I felt really good. We worked as a team today," she said.

Young added: "She hits a hard ball, every ball. She has the green light to swing away."

Elliazar's only hitting error came late in the match, and she also had two aces.

"That's how she's been the whole season," Young said. "She'll have seven kills and one error; eight kills and two errors. She's not one to make mistakes with her hitting."

In the third game, Mililani's Mariah Choo served the first five points, including two aces.

For the game, Mililani had 13 kills with one hitting error and five aces. Leilehua had eight kills and four hitting errors.

"Mililani is always tough to play," Leilehua coach Kory Toyozaki said. "In the first set we were up and then I think we maybe got a little too up. Mililani, you cannot make errors against them. They are too good a team."

Jolene Realin and Olivia Freitas each added five kills for Mililani.

Mililani led the first game 19-16, but Leilehua tied it at 20 on an ace by Ashley Momiyama.

A hitting error gave the Mules their first lead since 1-0, and kills by Ashley Gonzalez and Brittany Paikai put Leilehua ahead 23-20.

Mililani's Christen Schirmer picked up a kill, but Paikai's kill and a Trojans' hitting error ended it.

To start the second game, Mililani repeatedly found success with Soares and Elliazar on the left side.

Mililani went on a 6-0 run with Choo serving to take a 15-8 advantage. Soares had three kills during the surge.

"We expected that from her," Toyozaki said of Soares. "We were just hoping that we could touch her ball. She was on tonight, and she was going over us, around us."

Leilehua got as close as 15-11. It was 18-13 before a 5-0 Mililani run — with Realin serving — broke things open.

Paikai had 13 kills for the Mules, and Gonzalez added six.

Mililani finished with 36 kills, nine hitting errors, nine aces and eight service errors.

Leilehua had 30 kills, 19 hitting errors, two aces and two service errors.

Reach Kyle Sakamoto at ksakamoto@honoluluadvertiser.com.