Pearl City won its first OIA Division II boys volleyball championship ever and first league title overall since 2002 on Wednesday night with a 25-20, 25-14, 26-24 sweep of Kalani at Radford.
Senior Jeremiah Perifanos-Ta’amu put down a match-high 16 kills and eight digs and senior Zion Tupuola-Fetui added 10 kills for Pearl City (6-6), which played its best game of the season according to both players and coach.
“Throughout the season we’ve had good games of a little bit of everything but we’ve never had that complete package,” Pearl City coach Sean Chang said. “Tonight is honestly the closest we’ve had to have everything there — everything at a great level the whole time.”
“It’s the best we’ve played all season and all year,” added Perifanos-Ta’amu. “It feels great to know that we made history.”
Setter Cameron Reimer added a match-high 34 assists for the Chargers (6-6), who swept their two playoff games after going 4-6 to finish in seventh place in the OIA West regular season.
Pearl City never trailed in either of the first two sets.
Kalani held a 20-14 lead in the third set but Pearl City’s block proved to be too much. Tupuola-Fetui and Sean Sugimoto teamed up for consecutive double blocks with the Chargers down 24-23 and a hitting error by Kalani ended it.
Junior outside Keoni Thiim, who led the Falcons in kills, had six of his 12 in the third set. They all came during a 16-9 run that put Kalani ahead 20-14.
Falcons setter Leimana Naki finished with a team-high 20 assists.
“Words can not explain how I feel because it’s been a long journey,” Reimer said. “We kind of expected this because we had the talent but we just hadn’t put it together in the regular season. I think because we all came in with the same mentality that we were going to win as long as we did our job I think we were set.”
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