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Charger Fans May Be Seeing Black At Championships

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Pearl City High School senior,
Jovi Casares. Photo from
Dayne Teves.

For the Pearl City boys volleyball team, black will definitely be the color of choice when the Chargers take part in the New City Nissan Boys Division I State Volleyball Championships this week.

Not that Chargers head coach Bryson Martin has given up entirely on his team’s purple jerseys, but he’s not taking any chances after discovering a disturbing trend.

“I’m not trying to be superstitious or anything, but it seems like too much of a coincidence,” laughed Martin, who noted his team is undefeated at 13-0 when wearing black (and 13-3 overall for the season).“For our first game (of the recently completed Oahu Interscholastic Association Conference Tournament) against McKinley, I had told them to go upstairs and get ready, and for some reason they came down in purple. When we put the black ones on for our second game that day (a state tournament-clinching win over Mililani), we looked like a totally different team. If it means wearing stinky (black) uniforms in the state tournament, playing three games in one day, we’ll do it.”

While Martin is taking no chances with his team’s uniforms, he also attributed his team’s surprising loss to McKinley back on Oct. 24 more to a lack of focus.

“They knew it was an important game, but I don’t know if they realized how important it was until we were playing Mililani and we were fighting to extend our season,” he said of a 25-23, 19-25, 25-15 win over the Trojans that punched Pearl City’s ticket for the state tournament. “They were pretty down about the loss to McKinley. They took it hard, but they showed a lot of character in coming back against Mililani. It was a good turnaround for us after hitting a bump in the road.”

Martin’s team has had its share of adversity in recent weeks. Even before the aforementioned loss to McKinley in the OIA Tournament, a game Pearl City had entered as the top seed out of the OIA West, the Chargers had already lost middle blocker Karlo Rarangol for the rest of the season to a broken leg, prompting some key adjustments on the part of Martin and his coaching staff. How well the Chargers performed in Monday’s state tournament opener was to determine whether they’ll be in the winners’or losers’bracket this week. The state tournament culminates with Thursday night’s state championship game at 7:30 at Stan Sheriff Center on the University of Hawaii campus.

“We’re still working at it,” Martin said of playing without Rarangol.“We need to work harder in the middle, and our passing has to become better.”

Even without Rarangol, Pearl City will feature a talented lineup this week that includes Donovan Nieves, Michael Tanouye, Jonathan Fukui and brothers Camren and Reid Nebrija. Martin has also been pleased with the play of senior Jovi Casares and sophomore defensive specialist Justin Leong.

Both have seen their roles expand over the past few weeks.

“Jovi is stepping up and doing a good job,“Martin said.“He’s a guy that doesn’t always stand out, but when you go back and look at the (game) tapes, you always see his contributions.

“We’ve tried to spread it around this season, but we look forward to Donovan getting more balls (this week),” added Martin. “He has to be ready to hit every single time. (Jonathan) Fukui is an explosive guy. The last few days of practice have been pretty intense, so hopefully the team will step up and play as one.”

In finishing fifth in the OIA Tournament (the Chargers were the West regular-season champion), Pearl City was saddled with a low state tournament seed, but Martin is confident his team can play its way out of their predicament.

“The key is minimizing the small mistakes that result in giving away points,” he said.“A small mistake can mean a lot - it can mean a momentum change. The lead can switch in a matter of moments. Everyone has to be on the same page and ready to play.”

At press time, Martin was anticipating Kamehameha, the second seed out of the ultra-competitive Interscholastic League of Honolulu, as their first-round opponent in Monday’s first-round contest.

“Win or lose, as long as we play our best (effort-wise), we’ll be fine,” Martin said. “At the end of every game, if you can honestly tell yourself that you played your best, then there’s nothing more that you can do.”