The HHSAA DII Boys Volleyball State Championship featured two quality teams, the Pearl City Chargers and the Seabury Spartans, who both displayed high levels of grit and determination. Entering as the No.4 seed in the tournament, the Chargers survived and advanced past the No.5 Konawaena in the first round in a 5-set match. They would then take on the No.1 seed Saint Louis and would upset the Crusaders in 4 sets to advance to the state championship.
The road for the Spartans, as the No.3 seed was not easy either. Seabury would sweep Le Jardin in the first round and move on to play Nanakuli a dangerous team that had come off an uplifting win against the tournament No.2 seed, the Island School Voyagers. It took everything physically and mentally from the Spartans to battle back against a 0-2 set deficit to advance to the state championship match.
In the State Championship match, emotions ran high and Pearl City gained some early momentum as they edged out a prolonged Set 1, 31-29. After exchanging point for point, the Spartans answered back, winning Set 2 by three, 25-22. Set 3 was no different, the Spartans closed a four-point deficit from 19-15 to within one point 22-21 but the Chargers would go on a 4-0 run that would lead to them taking the 3rd Set, 25-21.
In the 4th and final set of the championship match, the Chargers emptied their tank. Down in the set 17-21, the Chargers scored seven unanswered points to completely flip the script of the set, 24-21. The Spartans would score one last point before Set 4 ended 25-22 in favor of the DII State Champions, Pearl City.
The Spartan’s Thomas Russell and Tyler Russell led the team with 22 and 20 kills respectively. Luca Connor had a match-high 59 assists. Pearl City’s Fati Seei-Tofi and Keahi Kaneakua led the Chargers with 16 and 15 kills respectively. The Chargers out-blocked the Spartans 14-6 and had only 5 service errors as compared to the Spartans’ 14.
Congratulations to both teams on an outstanding season!
Photographer: Lori McKeown https://www.lorimckeownphotography.com/
