It still feels like a family reunion anytime St. Joseph and Christian Liberty Academy get together for a BIIF volleyball match.
It still feels like a family reunion anytime St. Joseph and Christian Liberty Academy get together for a BIIF volleyball match.
Two years ago, the teams were combined and called East-Pac, so Canefire coach Gary Oertel knows all about Cardinals coach Tim Waugh’s players.
It works the other way, too, and CLA senior Chantal Koon pounded 21 kills in a 25-18, 18-25, 25-13, 21-25, 15-13 win over St. Joe at Walter Victor Gym.
In the fifth set, the Canefire took a 13-12 lead on a Cardinal hitting error, Koon knocked down her last kill, and freshman Ashlyn Ford finished the marathon with an ace.
None of the Cardinals or Canefire play club volleyball. That’s no big deal for Oertel, who appreciates the work ethic from his players.
“I’m proud of that,” Oertel said. “The Christian Liberty kids work hard, bleed orange and blue, and they are truly Canefire.
“When we play them it’s like family, and it’s fun. That’s the way it should be, a good competitive match.”
The two small private schools are a perfect fit for the lowest of the league’s three divisions, named after the colors of the U.S. flag: Red, White and Blue.
St. Joe has 102 high school students, including 28 international, while CLA has 44, one more than last year.
Blue teams play one another twice.
So, the Cardinal-Canefire family reunion tour is set for Sept. 30 at CLA’s Old Mill Field House.
St. Joe (0-2) and CLA (2-1) have a relative lack of experience, and both coaches have different-sounding but similar philosophies.
“Our theme is lift and serve. Life the people around us and serve the people around us,” Oertel said. “All that leads to play on the court, that ability to work as a team and come together as a team.
“At the end of the fourth set, we finished with energy and started the fifth set with energy. That’s the type of confidence we like to see to know that we can win in any type of situation.”
Besides Koon, senior Raesha Picar-Cabal was another standout, chasing down several free balls and keeping plays alive for the Canefire.
That’s sort of the theme for the Cardinals, who have inexperience but one promising player in sophomore Emma Faumuina, who banged down a half-dozen kills.
“We don’t have any kids who play club ball. We just try to keep the ball alive,” Waugh said. “We lack confidence, and we’re trying to instill confidence. It’s a rough go because our kids are one-sport athletes, and it’s their first time for volleyball.
“If Emma works on her technique, she can be something. She’s only a sophomore and really strong.”
It’s sort of a strange deal for Waugh because he knows exactly what a strong, confident and technically skilled player looks like.
His son is Mason Waugh, a 2010 Kamehameha graduate and setter, who also played for the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors. He’s now working in the hotel industry on Oahu.
“We’ve got three exchange students on the team and to communicate with them in volleyball, and they’re new to volleyball is crazy,” Waugh said.
But it’s crazy in a good way, especially when it’s a Cardinal-Canefire family reunion match.
St. Joe has 12 players on the rosters, including five seniors in Kaile Holzman, Jasmine Dela Cruz, Mackenzie Handy, Kau‘i Serrao, and Striesand Galdones.
“That’s the biggest amount of girls we’ve had on the team in a long time,” St. Joe athletic director Michael Costales said. “Hopefully, we can bring back some of the sports we used to have, like girls soccer and boys volleyball. A lot of kids are interested in baseball, but we have to get the enrollment up.”
Speaking of interest, Costales can thank the St. Joe boys basketball team for improving the depth.
Last season, the Cardinals had one of the most thrilling seasons in BIIF history.
They overcame an 18-point deficit, two injured starters, and stunned No. 1 seed Honokaa 51-50 for their first BIIF Division II title since 2010.
A night earlier, No. 3 seed St. Joe edged No. 2 Hawaii Prep 42-41 in the BIIF semifinals when Manato Fukuda dropped in a layup at the buzzer.
“We’ll have two big groups on both levels, varsity and junior varsity,” Costales said. “I’m hoping we can get some numbers out for girls basketball. Some of the international girls can play.
“We’ve never had a weight room before. Now we have one (on the stage at the gym). The kids are getting stronger.”
Costales is a 1981 St. Joseph graduate and his brother John Costales is a 1977 graduate, the same year as their cousin Stan Costales, who played baseball and basketball.
Cousin Stan, who owns SportsLine, didn’t play volleyball for the Cardinals but the brothers did.
That competitive marathon match at Walter Victor Gym was a fun one, even for the St. Joe AD, who remembers all the school’s highlights.
“Last year’s basketball team helped bring that excitement back,” Michael Costales said. “It was awesome.”