Warriors fall to Rough Riders

Kamehameha Maui to face Lahainaluna in consolation play

By ROBERT COLLIAS, Staff Writer
PUKALANI — The Kamehameha Schools Maui boys volleyball team was playing a state tournament match about half a mile from its home gym.

It didn’t do much good for the Warriors on Thursday night as they dropped a 25-18, 25-21 decision to Roosevelt at the King Kekaulike gym in the quarterfinal round of the New City Nissan Division I State Championships.

‘‘We just had too many errors,’’ Kamehameha Maui coach Robert Brede said. ‘‘We had a ton of service errors and when we got our serves in, we made hitting errors. Too many to win.’’

Trailing 20-17 in the second game, the Warriors twice drew within a point down the stretch — at 20-19 on a Roosevelt carry and 21-20 on a kill by Rama Camarillo.

Then Roosevelt’s Kaina Palama took over. He combined with Aaron Mochizuki on a block and put down a resounding kill to make it 23-20 before the match ended on a long serve by the Warriors.

Roosevelt (16-1), the Oahu Interscholastic Association runner-up, advanced to play No. 1 seed Punahou in the semifinals tonight at 7.

The fourth-seeded Warriors (7-4), champions of the Maui Interscholastic League, will play MIL runner-up Lahainaluna at 5:30 for a spot in Saturday’s fifth-place match.

‘‘They came out fired up and gave us a fight,’’ Roosevelt coach Kaui Mendonca said. ‘‘We played them last year and we knew they would be tough like that.’’

Kenneth Rewick, a 6-foot-6 middle blocker, had seven kills for the Rough Riders, who also had a season-high six team blocks.

‘‘We tried to work on our block lately and tonight it paid off,’’ Mendonca said. ‘‘That is the most blocks we have had in a long, long time.’’

Facing Punahou, the three-time defending state champions which dismantled Lahainaluna in the match before the Roosevelt-Kamehameha Maui contest, will not be easy, Mendonca admitted.

‘‘We didn’t even watch after a while,’’ he said. ‘‘We just went into the locker room and focused on what we had to do tonight. Obviously Punahou is the team to beat here and we will give it our best shot.’’

Kamuela Kalehuawehe-Valentine led the Warriors with five kills, Erwin DeCoite added four, Kaleo DeMello had three and Kekoa Mountcastle had two.

‘‘The best we can do now is fifth, but we are going to give that our best shot,’’ Brede said. ‘‘We will see what happens. We have to serve better than we did tonight, that much I know.’’

Kamehameha must also find a way to get off to a better start than they did against Roosevelt. The Rough Riders took a 15-8 lead before Brede called timeout in the first game.

‘‘We have to come out and play like we can,’’ Brede said. ‘‘Hopefully our fans will be out here to support us and we can ride that momentum.’’

• Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com'>rcollias@mauinews.com