In order to battle with volleyball powers Iolani, Punahou and Kamehameha, Maryknoll needs to put together a perfect game.Yesterday, the Spartans showed how much farther they need to go in a 16-14, 15-11 loss to Iolani (3-0).
"A perfect game is errorless, no unforced errors like hitting out, and trying to be more focused," Maryknoll coach Blaine Gier said. Sometimes when we play and mistakes happen, it happens in bunches. So if we can try to focus a little more, it will help us be a better team."
The Spartans (1-2) came close to taking the first game away from the Raiders, runners-up in the state tournament last year. Down 12-10, the Spartans pulled ahead 14-12 with kills from Ian Woodward and Riley Tang and the blocking of Stacey Wong, Tyler Wong and Kealakai Hussey. Two Maryknoll hitting errors tied the game at 14 and Iolani sealed the match with a service ace from Derrick Low and a dump shot from Sean Carney.
"That's where we lose focus," said Gier. "Players tend to look up at the scoreboard and protect the lead rather than playing and Iolani did a good job executing the sideouts and playing good defense because we're not a pretty hard team to read. Everybody knows where we're going to go. It gives our outside hitters a harder job because everybody knows wh're going to go to them."
In the second game, Iolani went up 9-5 behind Low's jump serve, which resulted in one hitting error and two overpasses that were hammered down by Iolani's Todd Blankenship. Maryknoll called a timeout and rallied to tie the game at 11, courtesy of three Raider hitting errors and two net violations.
A kill gave Iolani the side-out and the Raiders scored the game's final four points with Low and Robert Takushi serving.
After watching his teammates jump serve, Low recently decided to learn the skill.
"Coach Luis (Ramirez) told me to serve with confidence," Low said. "Our jump serve is a little harder to pass than our regular floater. Before, we used to do floaters and everybody would pass it easy. Now with our jump serve, it gives us a better opportunity to get a point off our serve." Helping out on the Spartan defense was Hussey, who was in on six blocks, including four blocks solos.
"He did awesome today," said Gier. "After the Punahou game, we spent a whole week working with him because he got thrown off at Punahou's play, so we focused on him readin the blocks a little bit better and reading the other teams." Added Ramirez, "We have a lot to work on. There are a lot of things I'm happy about, like out serving and passing game. The setting needs to improve and our blocking -- we're not blocking the ball as we should. We're a lot more multi-dimensional this year. We have a lot of guys that can actually do the job and hit the ball, so that's why we have to be a lot more creative and I don't think we were successful today at being creative."