Big Blue to take on Buffanblu in D1 state title match Saturday

KAPALAMA HEIGHTS — It will be Big Blue versus the Buffanblu in the final match of the prep boys volleyball season. 

The title game of the New City Nissan/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division I State Championships will feature tournament No. 2 seed Moanalua taking on defending champion Punahou Saturday. 

Na Menehune and the Buffanblu will bringing identical 15-0 records into the 7 p.m. championship match at the Cannon Activities Center on the campus of Brigham Young University-Hawaii in Laie. 

Moanalua, the No. 4 team in this week’s ScoringLive Power Rankings, defeated second-ranked Mid-Pacific in four sets in the second of two semifinals at Kamehameha’s Kekuhaupio Gymnasium Friday night to secure a spot in the title match. The set scores were 25-22, 21-25, 26-24 and 25-19. 

No. 1 Punahou swept past No. 5 Mililani, 25-22, 25-17 and 25-21, in the early semifinal to pave the way for its title defense. 

While the Buffanblu represent the gold standard in boys volleyball in Hawaii — affirmed by their 40 state championships in program history — Na Menehune have yet to claim the ultimate prize. 

Moanalua will be making its first appearance in the state final since 2022, when it lost to Punahou in straight sets. It had lost in the semifinal round in each of the last three seasons, all of them at the hands of opponents from the Interscholastic League of Honolulu. 

Thursday night, however, the Menes notched their second win over an ILH opponent in as many nights as they were coming off of a quarterfinal sweep of No. 3 Hawaii Baptist Wednesday. 

A win over the Buffanblu — who have dropped only two sets all year — would be nothing short of a David-versus-Goliath outcome. 

“I’m super excited that we’re getting to the state championship. We haven’t been there since I’ve been in high school,” said Menes senior outside hitter Lionel Gannon, who took 57 total swings, tallied 26 kills and hit .404 against the Owls. 

Gannon went toe to toe with fellow senior outside hitter Sava Miocinovic of Mid-Pacific, who put away 27 kills on 59 swings — both match-high marks — and hit .322. 

Representative of the battle between the pin hitters themselves, the teams were very evenly matched for much of the first three sets. In fact, neither team led by more than three points in the opening set. 

“It was really tough. Everyone was fresh on Mid-Pac and our side, so that’s why it kept going back and forth, but I think we really needed to just make sure were getting solid blocks up on (Miocinovic). He was playing really good and we didn’t really start slowing him down until the end of the third and into the fourth set, so we just really needed to assure that whenever he didn’t get a kill, that we got that dig and we needed to score and transition,” Gannon said. 

Set 1 was tied at 22 — one of 10 ties in the first set — before Moanalua prevailed with a 3-0 run that was capped by back-to-back aces by Gannon.

Na Menehune faced a one-point deficit in set 2 at 17-16, but the Owls separated with a 6-2 run that included three kills by Miocinovic to go up, 23-18. Julian Romine eventually finished off set 2 with a cross-court kill from the left side off an assist from Nikola Miocinovic. 

The Owls were gaining momentum during the middle portion of set 3. They went on a 5-2 run that included three kills by Romine, the last of which gave his team a 16-12 lead and triggered a timeout by Moanalua coach Alan Cabanting. 

However, the score was changed to 16-13 coming out of the timeout, much to the dismay of Mid-Pacific’s coaching staff. Owls’ coach Maria Taiafi-Husseini objected over the scoring discrepancy, but to avail. 

“I was told that the points on the (official’s) scoresheet was correct, but they forgot to put it up on the scoreboard,” she said. 

The error proved costly for the Owls as the Menes rallied and went on to win set 3, 26-24. Moanalua scored the final three points in the set to go up two sets to one and parlayed that into the fourth. 

Moanalua turned a slim 9-7 lead into a comfortable 16-9 cushion thanks to a 7-2 run that included three errors by the Owls, who committed 11 attack errors and hit .000 in the fourth set. Gannon tallied seven kills in the final frame. 

“Lionel wanted to be in that state championship match — that’s always been his goal — and he lives volleyball so when we needed it, he got it for us,” Cabanting said. 

In his last three matches, Gannon has compiled 69 kills and averaged 6.3 kills per set. 

Gannon also came up with eight digs, two aces and was in on three blocks. 

Taylor Chung had 12 kills and Loa McCutcheon had 10 kills and nine digs for the Menes. Christian Cruz registered 30 assists and six digs, Kolby Kawaa chipped in 16 assists, four digs and an ace and Darric Abe dug a match-high 12 balls in the win. 

Romine hit .516 with 19 kills against three errors on 31 swings for the Owls. He had two solo blocks and assisted on three others and tallied four digs. Brennan Flores had 11 digs and Nikola Miocinovic posted 44 assists and 10 digs in the loss. 

“I’m just very happy that they kept fighting because I told them that no matter what the outcome was, they just need to look at how far they’ve come this season compared to their other seasons that they’ve had,” Taiafi-Husseini said. 

Mid-Pacific was seeking its first appearance in the Division I title game. It was just 4-10 a year ago and 1-11 the season before that. In 2023, the Owls went winless at 0-10. 

Gannon praised the effort from MPI, which was coming off of a sweep of previously-undefeated Maui in Wednesday’s quarterfinals. 

“We knew they were going to play good. They kind of had a slow start to the Maui game, but we knew they were going to come out firing. All their options were working, obviously (Sava Miocinovic), that was the best I’ve ever seen him play. It was really hard to stop him, but we got some players of our own that can put the ball away,” Gannon said. 

Of the 54 state tournaments that have taken place since its inception in 1969, Punahou has won all but 14 times. Only three public schools have won the top-tier state championship and none since 1979. 

Gannon is hopeful the Menes can make history Friday night. 

“I’m going to leave it all out on the floor. I think if we’re playing our best, no one can stop us. I know Punahou is going to be really tough, they got no weaknesses so we really just gotta go out there and do our best and we’ll see how it goes,” Gannon said. 

Punahou was led by Cam Porter and Tanoa Scanlan, who combined for 33 kills, in its sweep of Mililani in the early semifinal at Kekuhaupio Gym Thursday. 

The ILH-champion Buffanblu hit .400 for the match, while the OIA runner-up Trojans hit .202. 

Porter, a 6-foot-1 senior outside hitter signed with UC San Diego, tallied 18 kills on 33 total swings with three errors for a .455 attack percentage. Scanlan, a 6-foot-6 junior outside hitter, posted 15 kills against four errors on 32 swings for a .344 attack percentage. 

Senior setter Nalu Akana, who is signed with the University of Hawaii, dished out 42 assists and had a pair of service aces. Libero Will Niethammer, a UC Santa Barbara signee, came up with a match-high 10 digs. 

Punahou amassed 9 ½ team blocks to Mililani’s two. 

Zyrus Alailima led the Trojans with 10 kills. Kaito Duranceau had eight kills and five digs, Seth Kimura contributed five kills and nine digs and Moises Murillo added five kills. Libero Justice Ishizaka had seven digs and setter Isalah Holeso recorded 28 assists. 

Mililani came out strong in the opening set. Duranceau put down his first kill of the match to ignite an 8-2 run that led to a 9-5 lead and triggered a timeout by the Buffanblu. However, Punahouresponded with a 7-1 run to put it ahead, 12-10. 

The Trojans kept pace through most of set 1 and got to within 23-22 on a Alailima kill from the right side, but Akana set-up opposite Keola Todd-Perry for a kill that gave their team set point and after a Mililani overpass off a Niethammer serve, Scanlan put it away to close out the set. 

Punahou hit a blistering .517 in set 2 and used runs of 4-1 and 7-2 to pull away and go up two sets to none. 

The teams traded runs in set 3. Six attack errors by the Buffanblu kept the Trojans in it, who pulled even at 21 after a red card was issued to Punahou. Coach Rick Tune called timeout with the score knotted up and his team responded by scoring the next four points to finish off the sweep. 

Mililani (13-3) was seeking its first appearance in a state championship match. Instead, it will meet Mid-Pacific (12-6) for third place at 2 p.m. Friday at BYUH.