On Thursday, October 22, Kaiser captured the Oahu Interscholastic Association White Division girls volleyball championship defeating Castle in five sets. The Cougars will represent the OIA in the Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division 2 State Tournament as a number three seed.

The tourney starts this week with games at McKinley, Radford, Farrington and Kalani. The title game will be held on Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center.

Along with Kaiser, the Division 2 bracket will include OIA’s Castle and Kailua. The Division 1 bracket will include OIA members’ number two seed Kahuku, Moanalua, Farrington, Roosevelt Aiea and Mililani.

“I think playing in states is great,” said Kaiser outside hitter Sarah Epstein.  “We worked very hard to get to this point, but there’s still more work ahead.”

The senior added, “The (first-round) bye in the tournament will help. It will give us some time to focus and prepare for our opponent.”

That opponent won’t be known until Wednesday night.

The winner of the Word of Life verses Hawaii Prep game will be the opponent of Kaiser on Thursday, October 29 at Kalani. At Farrington on Wednesday, Castle will battle Seabury while Kailua takes on Waimea in first-round games.

In the contest against Castle, the Cougars (13-3) had to fight all the way to the end, taking the final set 15-12 to earn their first league title in girls volleyball.

“I’m very happy for our team,” said Epstein. “We never gave up and just played as hard as we could. I’m looking forward to states and hopefully our desire to win will continue.”