Monday Morning MIL: Maui Prep beats Seabury Hall in girls volleyball for first time

The storylines emanating from a jam-packed Erdman Athletic Center on Friday night were numerous, but none was bigger than the final score.

The Maui Preparatory Academy girls volleyball team beat Seabury Hall for the first time, 22-25, 25-22, 25-14, 25-15. 

Maui Prep has been playing girls volleyball in the Maui Interscholastic League Division II ranks since 2009, making the result — in the midst of a loud, boisterous opposing crowd — simply huge for Na Pueo. 

Maui Prep is now 8-1 in the 14-match MIL D-II regular season, while six-time defending league champion Seabury Hall is 7-1. The Spartans won the first match between the two teams in four sets in Nāpili on Aug. 30.

“All of our Seabury matches this season we’ve had marked special on our calendar,” Maui Prep coach Ryan Kirkham said. “Just so proud of our girls tonight, very proud of the grit that they showed after losing that first set. … Big milestone for our program.”

After the Spartans tied the fourth set 12-12, Avery Kirkham slammed home a big kill to start a 5-0 run that included two Lauren Brown kills to make it 17-12 and prompt a timeout from Seabury Hall.

Na Pueo would lead by no less than five the rest of the way.

Maui Prep started building for this four years ago when they saw an impressive nucleus of freshman — that class included Brown and Avery Kirkham, the daughter of the coach. Brown had 23 kills, three aces and two blocks Friday and Kirkham had nine kills, 11 digs and three aces. The rest of the senior class for MPA includes setter Lola Doherty and Mayson Miles (nine kills, two blocks). 

Juniors Sofia Mallari (three kills, nine digs, two aces) and Grace Carson (four blocks, two kills), and sophomores Zoey Offergeld (15 digs, two aces) and Ashley Davis (46 assists, four digs) were all large contributors for Na Pueo.

Ryan Kirkham, who is also the tiny private school’s principal, started the volleyball program as the head coach, but stepped away for a few years until 2021. In Kirkham’s first year back, the team went 2-11 in MIL play, then 7-6 the following season and 11-3 last year, with all three losses to Seabury Hall.

“The goal was to take that core group of freshmen, build up underneath them with a strong club system, so that we could be competitive in the MIL this year,” Ryan Kirkham said. “This is the year that we’ve been building for.”

Brown said: “It’s awesome, playing in front of a big crowd is one of my favorite things ever. Lāna’i has an amazing program where they have a giant crowd and Seabury has one of the biggest crowds on island and it’s super fun to play in front of them. Even though they’re cheering against us, it creates an awesome energy to play in.”

Avery Kirkham added, “That was the best win of my life because we’ve just built up for it for so long and this game was, like, the emphasis of our season, so winning that was just so awesome. I can’t even believe it.”

On the other side of the court, the remarkable tradition of Seabury Hall was on display in many ways. The first-year coaching staff is all-women: head coach Lecca Roberts had a standout college career at Pepperdine; Yacine Meyer is an assistant coach, the school’s athletic director and was a standout player at Radford University; assistant coach Erica Pilotin was a standout rugby player at Arizona; and Jill Wirt, who also played high school volleyball in California, rounds out the coaching staff. Roberts, Meyer and Pilotin were all stellar players for the Spartans.

“That was pretty intentional, that all-lady staff, we made a pretty big decision that we wanted to have some awesome energy,” Roberts said. “Everyone on our staff has been a player at one point in time and we are really well-balanced, we balance each other out really nicely. I’m really pumped to be back here, I’m honored to be here.” 

The Spartans’ Milania Padilla led the Spartans with 10 kills, Destiny Keomaka-Wood had 22 assists, Delaney Tauaese had five kills and two blocks, Clia Kafka had seven kills and two aces and Tulsi Erlemann added 12 digs.

The two teams will possibly see each other again in a playoff match for the regular-season title and state tournament berth that goes with it. They could also see each other again in the MIL tournament on Moloka’i Oct. 16-18 and a possible overall championship match Oct. 19.

“They came to play and we knew they were going to come to battle,” Roberts said. “We’re going to come back and play a playoff game against them at some point and I know it’s going to be an awesome match.”

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MIL FOOTBALL: Baldwin defeats Maui High, King Kekaulike beats Moloka’i, Lāna’i unbeaten in eight-player ranks

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Baldwin High School beat Maui High 35-13 on Friday night at War Memorial Stadium, the Bears’ first win over the Sabers since a 27-21 win on Oct. 12, 2019. The victory broke a six-game losing streak for the Bears in the football rivalry between the two largest schools in Maui County.

The Bears (1-1 MIL D-I, 4-2 overall) got two 3-yard scoring runs from Jesse Alconcel, while Antone Sanches scored on a 9-yard run and had a 47-yard scoring pass to Hiilawe Han and a 13-yard touchdown pass to Dylan Wellestein. Kili Kamakeeaina made all five of her point-after touchdown kicks.

The Sabers scored touchdowns on a 38-yard pass from Cejen Ceniza to Charlie Peterson and an 8-yard pass from Nathaniel Russell to Jonah Cariaga. Peterson now has five touchdown catches in the last two games for Maui High (0-1, 2-3).

In MIL D-II play, King Kekaulike beat Moloka’i 42-7 in Ho’olehua. Na Ali’i won their D-II opener and are 3-3 overall, while the Farmers fell to 0-2, 0-5.

Lāna’i improved to 4-0 in the MIL eight-player ranks with a 42-0 win over Hana on Thursday. The Pine Lads can nail down their first outright MIL football title in school history with a win in either of their final two games — at Hana next week or vs. Kūlanihāko’i on Oct. 10 at War Memorial Stadium.

On Saturday, former Maui High coach Robert Dougherty confirmed to HJI that his new team, Morro Bay (Calif.) High School, will play the Farmers in Ho’olehua on Aug. 16, 2025, in a non-league game.

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GOLF: Baldwin alum Ariya Soldwisch ties for first in Eagle Invitational, her second college tournament

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Former Baldwin High School standout and MIL individual champion Ariya Soldwisch, a freshman at Cal State Northridge, tied for medalist honors at the Eagle Invitational in Worley, Idaho, on Sept. 22-23.

In just her second college tournament, Soldwisch shot 69-69—138 to tie for first with Montana State’s Lauren Greeny at 6-under par. It is CSUN’s third individual title in the past three seasons and 26th in program history.

Soldwisch won the MIL individual title playing for Baldwin in 2022 before finishing her high school career at Coronado High School in Henderson, Nev.

The Matadors won a team title for the first time since 2014 with a school-record 1-under-par 575 total to claim the victory at Circling Raven Golf Course.

*HJI’s “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.