No school on the island of Maui has ever won a New City Nissan/HHSAA girls volleyball state crown. The Seabury Hall Spartans came within two points of breaking that drought on Saturday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.
Seabury Hall’s Milaniakai Padilla (7) smacks one of her 32 kills down the line in the Spartans’ five-set loss to Kapa’a in the Division II state championship match on Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center. ScoringLive / GREG YAMAMOTO photo
For the fourth time in school history, the Seabury Hall girls volleyball team advanced to the Division II state championship match. For the fourth time, the Spartans came up short, leaving the 2010 Molokai team as the only girls state championship volleyball team ever from the Maui Interscholastic League.
Saturday night’s second-place finish felt different than 2007, 2012 or 2014 when Seabury Hall was also the Division II state runner-up. The Spartans fought back from two sets down to force a fifth set that came down to the wire before bowing to Kapa‘a of the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation.
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The final score was 25-22, 25-23, 21-25, 21-25, 15-13.
“It’s a combination of pride and disappointment,” second-year Seabury Hall head coach Lecca Roberts said Saturday night via phone as the team headed to dinner in Honolulu. ”I think the girls are really proud of how hard they worked and how far they’ve come.”
Seabury Hall’s Delaney Tauaese (4) blocks a Kapa’a shot in the Spartans’ five-set loss to the Warriors in the Division II state championship match on Saturday. ScoringLive / GREG YAMAMOTO photo
This Seabury Hall team is all about family, starting with Roberts. She graduated from the school in 2004 before a standout career at Pepperdine University. Roberts is the first alumna head coach and she played on the school’s first Maui Interscholastic League championship team in 2001.
In 2002, Roberts was part of the Seabury Hall’s first state final four team when there was only one level of play. Roberts currently serves as the school nurse and chemistry teacher.
Saturday, the Spartans started three seniors — outside hitter Clia Kafka, middle blocker Kate Dowd, and middle blocker/opposite hitter Delaney Tauaese. The rest of the starters included three sophomores: outside hitter/opposite hitter Milaniakai Padilla, libero Tulsi Erlemann, and outside hitter/opposite hitter Dillon McLellan. The only junior on the roster, setter/opposite hitter Destiny Keomaka-Wood, was the other starter.
Seabury Hall senior Clia Kafka digs the ball in the Spartans’ five-set loss to Kapa’a on Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center. ScoringLive / GREG YAMAMOTO photo
After wins over two Interscholastic League of Honolulu teams — in five sets over Hawai’i Baptist Academy in the quarterfinals on Thursday and a sweep of Maryknoll in the semifinals on Friday — the third-seeded Spartans had chances to win their first state crown over the fourth-seeded Warriors of Kaua‘i. Interscholastic League of Honolulu teams have won 16 of the 20 Division II state titles in girls volleyball in history.
Seabury Hall led 16-11 in the first set and 22-20 in the second set. In the fifth set, the Spartans led 4-1, and then trailed 9-6 before coming back to take an 11-10 lead.
“There’s also that piece of ‘we were so close, we worked so hard’ and to lose by two points in the fifth,” Roberts said, with a pause. “That’s tough.”
Roberts added, “I’m so proud of them. I made a lineup switch in the third and changed a lot of things.”
Roberts said the main part of her lineup change for the third set was to put the 5-foot-11 Kafka, the tallest starter for the Spartans, on the opposite side to deal with Carlyn Kamoku-Rapozo, who finished with 31 kills on 78 swings for the Warriors. Kamoku-Rapozo, a senior, is headed to Eastern Washington University to play collegiate volleyball.
Seabury Hall’s Milaniakai Padilla smacks the ball in the Spartans’ five-set loss to Kapa’a in the Division II state girls volleyball match on Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center. ScoringLive / HARLEY SIMON photo
Seabury Hall’s Madison Kalawaia, a 5-5 senior defensive specialist, started the final two sets in place of Kafka, who entered quickly afterwards each time to put up the block to hinder Kamoku-Rapozo. The Warriors held a 5-1 advantage in blocks through two sets, but after the lineup change by Roberts the Spartans held a 7-0 advantage in blocks over the final three sets.
“That’s just a testament to the growth that they’ve had over the last three months where they went out there and did what was asked of them,” Roberts said of her team. “That was our game plan all year, was to use our versatility and to move people around. They trusted it and came out and balled.”
Roberts added, “That was my most prideful moment, to see how they responded to that third set with a new lineup to try to come back and get the reverse sweep.”
The family feeling will no doubt continue for the Spartans. Spartans athletic director Yacine “Yaya” Meyer, a Seabury Hall 2008 graduate, serves as an assistant coach. Meyer led the Spartans to their first state final in 2007 and played college volleyball at Radford University.
Fellow assistant coach Erica Pilotin, a Seabury Hall 2018 graduate, was a middle blocker on the last Seabury Hall team to appear in the state final in 2014.
The Spartans boast 21 graduates since 2003 who have played college volleyball, including Shayla Hoeft, who starred at the University of Portland both indoors and on the beach and is currently a professional indoor player in Europe; and Ella Connor, who is currently playing beach volleyball at Cal Poly University — Connor became Seabury Hall’s first first-team All-American in college, in 2024.
For large parts of the 2-hour, 28-minute match it was Kamoku-Rapozo going swing for swing with Seabury Hall’s Padilla, a sophomore who finished with 32 kills on 76 swings.
Padilla took 44% of the Spartans’ 173 total swings, while Kamoku-Rapozo took 45% of the Warriors’ 174 swings. Padilla finished three matches at state with 74 kills and was named to the all-tournament team with teammates Keomaka-Wood and McLellan.
Seabury Hall senior Clia Kafka skies for a serve in the Spartans’ five-set loss to Kapa’a on Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center. ScoringLive / HARLEY SIMON photo
The family feel reaches the parents of the Spartans’ top three kill leaders. Padilla’s father is Jeff Padilla, a 1998 Seabury Hall graduate; Kafka’s father is Jeff Kafka, a 1994 Seabury grad and state champion boys diver in Hawai‘i that same year; and McLellan’s mom, Jessica Guard McLellan, is a 1996 Seabury Hall graduate.
The Spartans saw their 11-season Maui Interscholastic League Division II title streak snapped last year by Lānaʻi in Roberts’ first year at the helm.
“Last year was definitely a growing year,” Roberts said. “It was hard for us to find that unity. But this year, everybody came back knowing what we were going for and and what we had to try to get. … I told them last spring, ‘We’re going to take a leap of faith. … I hope that you can believe that we can go get this.’ ”
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HHSAA Cross Country: MIL champions Finn Hensley and Freya Carlsen, both of Seabury Hall, lead MIL contingent
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Seabury Hall’s Freya Carlsen finished fourth in the girls race in 19 minutes, 29 seconds, to top the Maui Interscholastic League’s 33 entrants in the Honolulu Marathon/HHSAA state cross country meet at Central O‘ahu Regional Park on Saturday.
Carlsen’s efforts led the Spartans to fourth place in the Division II team standings, behind Hanalani, Hawai‘i Prep and Hawai‘i Baptist Academy. Seabury Hall was the MIL girls team champion overall.
Finn Hensley of Seabury Hall finished 10th to lead 36 Maui County competitors in the boys competition. Hensley, the MIL boys individual champion, crossed the line in 17:10.
The Seabury Hall boys were fourth in Division II, behind Hanalani, Hawai‘i Prep and Hawai‘i Baptist Academy. MIL overall boys team champion Maui High was ninth place in the Division I team standings.
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COLLEGE WRESTLING: Mikah Labuanan impressive in first college tournament win
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Kamehameha Schools Maui graduate Mikah Labuanan, the first four-time boys state wrestling champion in Maui Interscholastic League history, won the 149-pound weight class in his first college wrestling meet for Cal State University Bakersfield on Saturday.
Mikah Labuanan features in a CSU social media post following his win in his first college wrestling meet. Photo courtesy: Mikah Labuanan / CSU Athletics
Labuanan won the Menlo Open with four convincing wins: 17-1 over Adam Duong of Rio Hondo College; 16-4 over Victor Salgado of Victor Valley College; 7-5 over Andre Dargani of San Francisco State; and 11-3 over Bryan Avila of Vanguard in the final.
Labuanan is a true freshman who graduated from Kamehameha Maui in May.
“Monday Morning MIL” columns appear weekly on Monday mornings with updates on local sports in the Maui Interscholastic League and elsewhere around Maui County. Please send column ideas — anything having to do with sports in Maui County — as well as results and photos to rob@hjinow.org.
