An old face returns home to face the UH-Hilo volleyball team in its final PacWest Hawaii pod merry-go-round.
Mahala Kaapuni, a 2020 Hilo graduate, is a freshman outside hitter for Alaska Anchorage (9-1), which plays the Vulcans (11-1) at 10 a.m. Friday at the UHH Gym.
Kaapuni, a 5-foot-9 hitter, has had playing time for the Seawolves. In the last match against rival Alaska Fairbanks, Kaapuni had three kills on nine swings in a sweep against the Nanooks. On April 16 against Fairbanks, she smacked a career-high 10 kills.
Both teams belong to the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, which is home to perennial power Western Washington. Alaska Anchorage didn’t play the Vikings this season.
But in 2019, the Seawolves swept the Vikings, who have appeared in the last eight NCAA Division II championships.
The Vuls and Seawolves also play Saturday night. UHH hosts Chaminade on Friday night, and the Vuls wrap up the spring season with a match at 1 p.m. Sunday against Hawaii Pacific.
UHH tennis cruises
The Vulcans men took a positive first step at the PacWest tennis championships, beating Biola 4-0 on Thursday in Arizona.
The win for the second-seeded Vuls sets up a fourth meeting of the season with Hawaii Pacific in Friday’s semifinals. The Sharks, who have lost two of three to UHH this season, defeated Metro State 4-0 in the quarters.
“We have been pretty banged up, but stepped up big today,” UHH coach Kallen Mizuguchi said in a school release. “We now need to refresh and get ready for another war with HPU.”
On Thursday, the Vuls took the team doubles point via wins from Chun En Wu and Alessio Demichelis (6-2) and Martin Soukal and Santiago Di Loreto (6-4).
In singles, Soukal got the Vulcans to 2-0 lead with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Alexei Prokopchuk on court one. Di Loreto added the next team point on court six with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Erik Martinez, and En Wu clinched the match on court three with a 6-4, 6-3 triumph over Antonio Varona.
In matches that went unfinished, Demichelis was trailing in the third set, Luca Checchia was down a set, but up 5-3 in the second set, and Joshua Liu had won the first set but was down 5-2 in the second.