Monday Morning MIL: Maui High on top of Division I boys volleyball; 4 meet records fall at Yamamoto Invitational

The Maui High School boys volleyball team has won the Maui Interscholastic League title just three times, the last one in 2001.

Now, nearly a quarter century later, the Sabers lead MIL Division I play at 3-0 and appear to be the team to beat, but veteran coach Kenny Houpo said he is taking things very cautiously.

“We can be competitive, but injuries or academics, man, will put that right out of your system,” Houpo said. “We are trying to be humble … because you can’t count your eggs before they hatch, man. Our team is still young. We haven’t won in a long time, so excitement is in the air, emotion is in the air.”

Houpo said the team is strong offensively but needs to work on its weaknesses on defense.

The Sabers start five juniors and two seniors in their lineup, including twins Luke and Zachary Prangnell. Luke Prangnell stands 6-foot-1, while Zachary Prangnell is 6-3. 

The Prangnells are juniors who attend Kīhei Charter High School — they are allowed to play for Maui High because their school does not offer the sport, nor does Kūlanihāko‘i High School, the closest Department of Education school to Kīhei Charter. 

The twins push each other daily in practice at the Izumi “Shine” Matsui Athletic Center on the Kahului campus.

“In practices, it gets pretty competitive,” Zachary Prangnell said. “I’m trying to get better than him every day.”

The Sabers stamped themselves as MIL championship contenders with a 25-21, 25-10, 25-15 win over six-time defending champion Kamehameha Maui on March 6. Maui High has also swept King Kekaulike and Lahainaluna. 

Maui High is set to finish the first round of MIL on Tuesday against Baldwin. Currently, Kamehameha Maui is 3-1, Baldwin is 2-1, while King Kekaulike and Lahainaluna are both 0-3.

Kamehameha Maui’s string of MIL titles in the sport dates to 2017, although there were no seasons played in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

The regular season is 12 matches, or three full rounds of play. The MIL Division I tournament is set for April 26-29 at King Kekaulike Gym. 

The winner of the regular season will clinch a berth in the New City Nissan/HHSAA state tournament May 5 at regional sites and May 8-10 on O‘ahu. The MIL tournament will determine a second MIL representative to the state tournament. 

If the regular-season MIL winner claims the league tournament, that team is the overall champion. If the regular-season winner does not win the MIL tournament, the two winners would play off for the overall title on April 30.

The Sabers were MIL runners-up last season and lost a close four-set match to Roosevelt in the first round at state, which ended their season. 

Both Prangnell brothers are confident this season.

“We’re trying to just show the other (Maui) teams what competition they have right now,” Zachary Prangnell said. “Fairly certain that we are definitely the team to beat on the island.”

Luke Prangnell added, “We saw some of the best teams in the state at a preseason tournament and if we fight our hardest we can definitely challenge them a lot in the state tournament.”

Baldwin coach Al Paschoal sees the Sabers as the team to beat in MIL Division I play this season. Paschoal and Houpo are former club teammates with the Maui Brothers Volleyball Club that existed in the 1990s. Dave Shields was also a member of the Maui Brothers Club and is an assistant coach for the Sabers.

“Definitely at this point of the season, Maui High is the frontrunner,” Paschoal said. “They’ve got a lot of kids that play club, a lot of kids who played on O‘ahu for club this past season. They’ve got the most seasoned players in the league at this point. As teams and players develop throughout the season, I think it will become a little tighter, but for now I’ve got to tip my hat to Maui High. They’re a solid team this year, a very solid team.”

Developing the teammate camaraderie for the tall twins from Kīhei Charter High School has been a three-year process with the Maui High School volleyball team.

“We just showed up freshman year, we had no idea who they were, they didn’t know who we were, but we became quick friends, practicing together every day,” Luke Prangnell said. “You have to have a good friendship to be a good team. We have that friendship and camaraderie.”

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MIL TRACK AND FIELD: Four meet records broken in the Yamamoto Invitational

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Kamehameha Schools Maui senior pole vaulter Nohi Casco has improved his personal record by a foot in the first three weeks of the Maui Interscholastic League track and field season. Casco cleared 14 feet, 6 inches, to break the meet record at the Yamamoto Invitational by one inch on Saturday at Satoki Yamamoto Track and Field Facility inside War Memorial Stadium.

Casco entered the season with a personal best of 13-6, a mark he bettered in MIL Meet No. 2 on March 7 with a clearance of 14-3.

Other Yamamoto meet records broken over the weekend included the Maui High boys 4×100-meter relay (43.23), King Kekaulike’s Jake Hackett in the boys 800 (2:00.57), and the Seabury Hall girls in the 4×800 relay (10:47.04).

Maui High junior sprinter Jonah Cariaga was just off another Yamamoto meet mark with his 10.79-second finish in the 100-meter dash. The meet record is 10.77 set by former state champion Joseph Randolph of Baldwin in 2022. Randolph is now a standout sprinter at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill. — Randolph won the state high school title in the 100 in 2022 in 10.97.

“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.