Slideshow: As usual, ILH dominates All-State volleyball

Now more than ever, volleyball talent in Hawaii resides in the ILH.

Oahu’s private-school league garnered 12 of the 15 players on the Star-Advertiser’s season-ending All-State team, tying the record it held in 2015 and 2008. The fewest ILH players on the Fab 15, which began in the Star-Bulletin in 2007, was eight in 2013. So the ILH has always had more than half of the representation.

Kamehameha put three players on the Fab 15 this year, with all of them (Braelyn Akana, Lexis Akeo and Kili Robins) making it for the second time. The Warriors have had at least one girl on the All-State first team every year since 2004 and Chris Blake has been the coach of the year seven times. The closest to him is former Kamehameha coach Dan Kitashima with five.

A link to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser story in the Sunday, Nov. 26 on the 2017 Fab 15 (subscriber content) is here.

Where this year is different, though, is that the selections are not limited to Kamehameha, ‘Iolani and Punahou. The big three put seven players on the team, but were joined by players from Le Jardin (Natalie Piper), Hawaii Baptist (Ally Wada), Damien (Shelby Capllonch) and two from Maryknoll (Natalie Nava Minjarez and Rhyenne Filisi).

Capllonch, Minjarez and Filisi represented the first time their schools have ever had a player selected to the Fab 15.

The Neighbor Islands were shut out of the selections for the first time since 2012.

In 2015, the big three had all seven of the ILH’s selections. In 2008, the smaller schools were represented much like this year, with Hawaii Baptist’s Sarah Palmer earning player of the year and Word of Life also represented in senior Crystal Powell.

The ILH’s smaller schools appear to be here to stay, with Le Jardin putting at least one girl on the first team in each of the last three years, but the graduation of Ally Wada possibly signaling the end of HBA’s three-year run.

Wada has been on the first team three years in a row and was the first HBA player to make it since Palmer in 2009. She joins Palmer on a select list of 15 three-time selections, 10 of them from the ILH.

Three-time All-State first teamers:
(*-four timers)

>> Robyn Ah Mow, McKinley (1992)
>> Lindsey Berg, Punahou (1997)
>> Aneli Cubi-Otineru, Punahou (2003)
>> Kanani Herring, Kamehameha (2007)
>> Liz Kaaihue, Punahou (2006)
>> Kaleinani Kabalis, Moanalua (2007)
>> Carly Kan, Punahou (2012)
>> Jordan Keamo, Mililani (2013)
>> Misty Ma’a, Kamehameha (2011)
>> Tai Manu-Olevao, Punahou (2008-2011)*
>> Chanelle Molina, Konawaena (2015)
>> Sarah Palmer, Hawaii Baptist (2009)
>> Alohi Robins-Hardy, Kamehameha (2010-13)*
>> Bekah Torres, Kamehameha (2007)
>> Ally Wada, Hawaii Baptist (2017)

‘Iolani sophomore Elena Oglivie is halfway to joining Cubi-Otineru and Robins-Hardy as the only four-time selections after being judged No. 2 this year behind teammate Saige Ka’aha’aina-Torres. The Raiders have had the player of the year three years in a row, and it has been a different player each time. That has never happened before.

Oglivie also is the only sophomore on this year’s list. There has been one every year since 2008.

Here is a slideshow of this year’s Fab 15:

Here is a list of first-teamers. The first All-State team was put together by the Honolulu Advertiser in 1988. Before that, they selected league all-stars. The Star-Bulletin jumped into the fray in 2000:

And if the list of first-teamers isn’t enough, here is a slideout of every newspaper All-State volleyball layout since the first one in 1988: