BYU-Hawaii Stays Ahead of Rival Hilo : Volleyball: Defending NAIA champion earns one semifinal berth.

Familiarity, in this case, brought out the best in both teams.

In what is a frequent and furious fight for island supremacy, Brigham Young-Hawaii won four out of five previous meetings with Hawaii-Hilo.

Amend that to five out of six.

In the quarterfinals of the NAIA National Women’s Volleyball Tournament at Point Loma Nazarene Friday night, BYU--Hawaii sputtered out of the gate, but rebounded to snatch a 16-14, 15-4, 15-10 victory from its cross-island rival.

The defending national champion Seasiders advanced to today’s semifinal against the winner of Friday’s late match between Carroll, Mont., and Western Oregon.

Host Point Loma Nazarene was playing Henderson State, Ark., in the other late quarterfinal Friday. The winner advances to a 12:30 p.m. semifinal today against Cal Baptist, a 8-15, 15-8, 15-8, 15-11 winner over Northwestern College of Iowa.

The championship match is scheduled for 8 p.m. today, after the consolation final at 6 p.m.

BYU-Hawaii, the top-ranked NAIA team all season and top-seeded here, is heavily favored to repeat as champion. The Seasiders finished 30-1 and won last year’s title with six freshmen.

This season’s isn’t looking too shabby, either. BYU-Hawaii (24-2) has lost only to Division I Penn State and to Hawaii-Hilo, the latter in five games. Earlier in the season, the Seasiders defeated the University of Hawaii, then ranked 12th in Division I, to give the Rainbows their first-ever in-state loss.

But BYU-Hawaii hardly tires of the local competition. Between them, these two teams have won eight of 12 NAIA women’s volleyball championships.

“It’s weird, we both seem to play better every time we meet,” said senior middle blocker Laurie Kemp of Hawaii-Hilo. “You think it would go the other way. We played better, a lot better. But so did they. I don’t know why we don’t beat them.”

The first game was a big reason. The Vulcans (21-10) let a 6-1 lead disappear and went on to lose the it, 16-14.

“It’s hard to come back from that,” Kemp said.

Paced by the outside hitting of Irae Utu, who had a game high 24 kills and the defense of Anik Valiengo and Ui Jones, BYU-Hawaii won the next game easily.

In the third, the Vulcans couldn’t hold on to its 8-3 lead.

“We showed a lot of heart in coming back,” said Seasider Coach Wilfred Navalta. “But we do need to out to a quicker start.”

Hawaii-Hilo, which was eliminated from this tournament by BYU-Hawaii in the quarterfinals last year as well, was hoping to get the Seasiders down enough that they would begin to bicker among themselves.

“If you break them, they start to bit on each other,” Kemp said. “That was our goal.”

In-house fighting is a concern, but the Seasiders are dealing with it.

“Some of the girls do yell, but they’re learning to talk and remember that it’s better to play as a team than as an individual,” said BYU-Hawaii co-captain Heidi Kitashima.

Now that the Vulcans are out of the tournament, they will force themselves to pad the stands and cheer for their Island rivals.

“Off the court, we’re friendly and we support each other,” Kitashima said.

Kemp agreed that Hawaii-Hilo would support its neighbors as a show of state solidarity, but she wouldn’t go as far as to say the teams are friends.

“There is respect there,” Kemp said. “I don’t know if we’re friends, but it’s definitely a rivalry.”