Nothing or no one was going to stop Maple Mountain from marching to its second straight 5A boys volleyball state title.

The Golden Eagles were dominant from start to finish on Saturday at the UCCU Center against Wasatch in a 25-16, 25-15, 25-15 sweep, the program’s 42nd straight win against Utah competition dating back to March of 2024.

“It looks easy, but we’ve had our struggles,” Maple Mountain head coach Napoleon Galang said. “It’s just so satisfying to see it pay off in the end.”

The Golden Eagles boast perhaps the best players at their positions in the state — 6-foot-7 senior outside hitter and BYU signee Trey Thornton, 6-7 junior setter Taft Hillman and 6-6 senior middle blocker Manase Storey — so it’s no wonder they were the No. 1 seed and expected to be in the state final.

Many teams fold under that kind of pressure.

Not this one.

“It’s a blessing that we have this kind of confidence,” said Thornton, who had 22 kills in his final match. “Everybody is a little bit scared to play us. Honestly, I’ve heard lost of people in the hallways talking, ‘Ooh, there’s Maple Mountain. We gotta get Maple Mountain.’ But staying humble has really helped us get here. Nothing’s been given to us.”

No. 4 Wasatch, which upset No. 2 Bountiful in the semifinals, has a good club led by pin hitters Chase Billeter and JJ Serre. But the Wasps had no answers for the Maple Mountain offense directed by Hillman (40 assists) with such deft ability.

“Credit to Taft, he runs a great offense,” Thornton said. “Our passing is the best in the state. Every single game, we outperform in the passing category. Having that pass really sets up our offense to just go and hammer balls.”

Wasatch led just four times the entire match under the relentless pressure from Maple Mountain. A pair of aces from Hillman got the Golden Eagles off to a great start in Set 1 and Hillman’s exquisite feed to Thornton from the back row for a kill produced a 15-6 lead. Hillman and Storey teamed up for a block and Hillman killed an overpass to get to set point. A net violation by Wasatch resulted in a 25-16 win for Maple Mountain.

Thorton was unstoppable to start Set 2, ripping off seven kills as the Golden Eagles took an 11-7 lead.

“Having a target on my back makes me play smarter,” Thornton said. “It really helps having a team that uplifts me and backs me up every single point. Without them, I don’t think I could do it. We’re hungry for every single point and we’re going aggressively every point.”

An ace from Storey made the score 18-10 and Thornton added two more kills in a 25-15 victory.

Maple Mountain went on a 9-0 run early in Set 3, with Thornton and Abe Hawkins logging two blocks and two kills apiece, for a 13-3 lead and the Golden Eagles would not be denied on their way to the sweep.

Despite their dominating play, Galang said Maple Mountain always approaches every match the same way.

Besides Thornton, Hillman and Storey, Maple Mountain relied on Hawkins, junior outside hitter Matheus Borges and a pair of freshmen — outside hitter Kimball Olsen and libero McKay Beattie — in posting a 29-1 mark in 2025, with the only loss to Windward (Calif.) at an out-of-state tournament in March.

“We had a lot of returning players and we had some new freshmen coming to the open gyms,” Galang said. “We had this pre-season tournament where we knew there was something special about this team. From Day 1 they knew what they wanted, and they worked so hard every day in practice for that. All our players have matured so it’s not just the ‘Trey Show.’

“We said when we finished last year we wanted to do this back to back. So it’s just a testament to how hard the boys worked and how hard my coaching staff worked to get to this point.”

Storey added: “We kind of knew from the start, but it was very questionable, because we had new players. Two seniors were gone, and out of nowhere, these two freshmen came in, and they just kind of saved our butts for what we needed. This feeling, I’ll never get over it. It’s unforgettable.”

Stanford was too good, too fast, too Olympic.

The Hawaii women’s water polo team saw its NCAA Tournament run come to an end at the seemingly webbed hands of the top-seeded Cardinal, who were everywhere they needed to be in the IU Natatorium pool in a 13-4 rout in Indianapolis, Ind., on Saturday.

Big West champion Hawaii went 22-5 in coach James Robinson’s first year as program successor to his former boss (and still mentor) Maureen Cole.

Making the semifinals — UH put just about everything into its 8-7 win over an up-tempo Cal team in Friday’s quarterfinal — was a powerful symbol of sustained quality for the Rainbow Wahine.

But Stanford? The nine-time national champions put the emphasis on the first word in “Olympic-size swimming pool.” Of their six field players in the starting lineup, five have represented their countries on the international stage. It blasted Wagner 28-6 on Friday.

It is the only program to have participated in all 24 editions of the NCAA women’s water polo championships.

“Got to tip the cap to Stanford, obviously an incredible program, experienced team, ton of veterans,” Robinson said in a postmatch video interview with Hawaii media. “They played awesome.

“But for us, I think that one loss doesn’t define the season,” he added. “Couldn’t be more proud of this group what we accomplished after a little bit of a disappointing finish (in the national semifinals) last year, just being able to come back and put ourselves in that same position.”

It was UH’s first time making consecutive appearances in the NCAA semis since 2005 and 2006. But UH was again denied the program’s first championship game appearance.

UH hung in through a quarter, trailing just 3-2. But a 4-0 second period by the Cardinal, then a 4-1 third put the match out of reach.

Jenna Flynn, who opened the game with three straight goals, outscored UH herself with a double hat trick of six scores as Stanford (24-1) advanced to face USC in Sunday’s championship. The Trojans edged UCLA 15-13 in Saturday’s other semifinal.

UH shot 4-for-29.

It was a more lopsided outcome than when UH and Stanford met at the Fresno State Polo-Palooza on Jan. 18, the second match of the season won 12-7 by the Cardinal.

“Every team is completely different to January compared to in May. You’ve had five extra months to work and refine and just clean up the little details,” senior center Jordan Wedderburn said. “Stanford’s a world-class team. They have won the national championship so many times for a reason.”

UH won marquee games against UCLA and Cal at the Barbara Kalbus Invitational in Irvine, Calif., 

Freshmen Ema Vernoux and Gabrielle Doyle found the net for UH, while veterans Bernadette Doyle and Wedderburn scored one apiece in their final collegiate game.

Bernadette Doyle, the Big West Player of the Year and UH’s best two-way threat, had two steals and three field blocks.

Wedderburn, of South Africa, scored 68 goals as a senior and finished with 161 for her career, ninth in program history.

Wedderburn said afterward UH’s showing this week helped dispel the notion that the Wahine only made it to the semifinals last year because it was an Olympic year when many of the elite teams’ top players are away representing their countries.

“We wanted to prove that this is where we belong, and this is where we are going to continue to be,” Wedderburn said. “I think for so many years, it’s been the top four, the top four, the top four, is like MPSF (only). And we just want to get the Big West in the door.”

Goalkeeper Daisy Logtens stopped 12 Cal shots in Friday’s quarterfinal round but managed only four against the powerhouse Cardinal. One of them was on a penalty shot.

Robinson gave the players, especially the senior class, credit for anchoring the team during the coaching transition. He also gave Cole a shout-out. (Wedderburn interjected that Robinson and Cole still confer almost every day.)

“They (the players) wanted the world to know, and the country know, that they could come back and put ourselves in the same position,” Robinson said. “So they put that work in. They made my job easy.”

Coach James Robinson, center left, spoke to the Rainbow Wahine during a timeout at the NCAA Tournament semifinal against top-seeded Stanford on Saturday. (Photo courtesy of UH Athletics)

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.

The 2025 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Track and Field Championships came to a close Saturday at the University of Minnesota Duluth’s James S. Malosky Stadium. This year’s Championships was full of great successes for the University of Minnesota Duluth track and field teams. 

The crown jewel of these successes came from graduate student Shaelyn Hostager, who won the women’s 5000m in a time of 17:10.41. After taking the women’s 10,000m on Friday, it was Hostager’s second win on the weekend. 

Other all-conference performances came from junior Brock Unger in the men’s 400m, and Savannah Schley in the women’s 800m. Unger took third with a time of 47.69, while Schley ran a time of 2:08.57, each in their respective events. Both performances were also facility records and PRs. 

The Bulldog relays also showed up big this weekend. The women’s 4x100m school record was broken again by the team of Emily Anderson, Kate Fitzgerald, Jordan Grell, and Hailey Hollar. The women ran to fifth in a time of 47.00.

In the same event, the Bulldog men ran to a third place finish with a time of 41.06. The squad consisted of Cole Brisbois, Brock Unger, Nick Westphal, and Brady Johnson.

In the men’s 110m hurdles, junior Sam Blomberg took fourth with a time of 14.41. Also landing herself on the podium was fifth year Madeline Verkerke in the women’s 1500m. Verkerke ran to fifth place with a time of 4:36.04. 

Freshman Noah Rodenwald launched himself to a fourth place finish in the men’s pole vault (4.46m), and junior Will Heydt threw to a mark of 55.23m to take fourth in the men’s javelin throw. 

Over in the pit, sophomore Erin Steinman leaped to a mark of 11.72m in the women’s triple jump, with freshman teammate Allysah Larson just behind with a bound of 11.51m. The women placed fifth and seventh respectively.  

In the women’s 400m hurdles, freshman Avary Fitzpatrick ran to a PR and fifth place finish in a time of 1:02.92, while sophomore Noah Foster also ran a PR and eighth place finish in the men’s 1500m (3:54.11). Freshman Billy Auvin also took eighth in the men’s 400m run. 

Sophomore Brady Johnson showed up big in both the men’s 100m and 200m races. His times of 10.59 and 21.34 were good for seventh and sixth, respectively. 

The day of competition wrapped up with the 4x400m relays, where the Bulldog women claimed fourth, and the men, fifth. The women’s team of Avary Fitzpatrick, Hailey Hollar, Kate Fitzgerald, and Savannah Schley ran a time of 3:52.39, and the men’s squad of Brock Unger, Cole Brisbois, Alex Croston, and Brady Johnson clocked a time of 3:15.43.

PR’s 

Women’s 5000m; 

Eve Anderson 18:01.16

Mileena Sullivan 18:12.37

Elizabeth Van Loon 18:13.33

Women’s Javelin Throw; Graycee Roubinek 36.79m

Women’s Triple Jump; Parker Ennis 10.10m

FOUNTAIN – The Eaglecrest boys volleyball program has been successful since serve one of the first sanctioned season, but winning a state championship had thus far been elusive.

The Raptors finally chased that down Saturday night at Trojan Arena, as they overcame nemesis and Centennial League rival Littleton Public Schools — who they played for a second time on the final day — for a thrilling 19-25, 25-23, 25-19, 27-25 victory.

Eaglecrest had been building towards a title and it finally came on the efforts of a veteran group that laid everything on the line to get it done.

“Even when things were going well, I just wanted to think about how we were performing,” said Eaglecrest coach Chad Bond, whose team finished 25-5. “I’ll probably be sitting around on my couch tomorrow and think ‘wow, this solidifies all the hard work we’ve put in over the years. Those guys came into my gym four years ago playing volleyball for the first time and now they are leaving as state champions.”

The Raptors had come close to reaching the mountaintop in 2023 when they advanced to the state championship match, but lost in four sets to Discovery Canyon, a co-op program that was the powerhouse for the first two years of the sport.

A 1-2 showing last season — where it was eliminated by the same LPS program in the consolation bracket — again left Eaglecrest shy of a title. Bringing one home this season seemed possible, but the journey included significant adversity, especially when it came to injuries.

The opponent that also loomed in the Raptors’ way was LPS, which defeated them in five sets during Centennial League regular season play, swept them in the Centennial League Challenge final to claim the league title and dealt them a 25-20, 25-22, 25-22 defeat in a championship semifinal. In total, LPS (a co-op of players from Arapahoe and Heritage) had won the past five matches between the teams dating back to the 2022-23 season.

Eaglecrest’s brand of all-out defense coupled with its never-say-die attitude and plenty of talent eventually brought it through to the championship.

The Raptors watched LPS roll to a six-point win in the opening set, but unlike previous matches, they turned the momentum in their favor and held it the rest of the way.

Led by the attacks of senior Jackson Shaw, junior Ashton Bond and a variety of others, Eaglecrest was able to hold on to leads in the second and third set to take the advantage.

“We just had to move on to the next point, no matter what happens,” Bond said. “Our guys could not have shown that attitude any better than they just did. It was amazing.”

Not going out quietly, LPS had set point in its quest to push the match to a deciding fifth set, but a successful tip by sophomore Will George evened the match. Senior Ethan Levakin then put Eaglecrest in front and a wide attack on match point sent a swarm of Raptors into the center of the court in two big dogpiles.

“I couldn’t be more proud of my team,” said Shaw, who along with fellow senior Matthew Dye was on the roster for the 2023 state runner-up team. “We battled through adversity, through injuries the whole season. We stuck with the game plan and it worked out.”

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The St. Olaf College men’s track and field team won three events as part of a third-place performance at the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Friday and Saturday at Macalester Stadium.

Junior Lance Nemecek, senior Andrew Skemp, and St. Olaf’s 4×800-meter relay of first year Jackson bullock, senior Sean Hartney, junior Zach Martin, and first year Austin McInturff accounted for the Oles’ three event victories over the two-day meet. St. Olaf compiled 116 points to finish 26.5 points ahead of fourth-place Concordia-Moorhead. Bethel University edged Saint John’s University by half a point to win the team title with 207 points.

Over the duration of the meet, St. Olaf had eight all-conference (places 1-3) and 10 honorable mention all-conference (places 4-6) performances, including a pair of runner-up showings by junior Ignatius Fitzgerald in distance events. Fitzgerald was second in both the 1,500-meter run and the 3,000-meter steeplechase, breaking the program record in the latter event in the process.

FRIDAY RECAP

Titles from the 4×800-meter relay and Skemp highlighted the opening day of the meet for St. Olaf, which earned 55 points on Friday to sit second in the team standings behind only Saint John’s. The Oles registered four top-two showings in the three track-event finals on the day.

Bullock, Hartney, Martin, and McInturff won the 4×800-meter relay in 7:41.52, edging the Johnnies’ unit by just under one-and-a-half seconds while setting a new facility record by nearly four seconds. The performance marked the first time St. Olaf won the event since posting the meet record in 2016-17 and slotted the quartet in at No. 3 on the program’s all-time list.

In the final event of the night, Skemp, junior Kevin Turlington, and junior Gael Manzur Strandlund recorded a 1-2-4 finish in the 10,000-meter run, which was pushed back a couple of hours due to temperatures in the 80s during the day. After being the runner-up the last two years, Skemp won his first individual conference title in 31:19.19 to give the Oles their second champion in the event in the last three seasons.

Turlington collected All-MIAC honors after being edged out by Skemp at the line by less than half a second in 31:19.66. Manzur Strandlund landed in the honorable-mention spots for the second season in a row in fourth (31:47.42), while first year Cooper Gundersen also scored with a PR of 32:23.89 in eighth.

In the first track event of the day, Fitzgerald was the runner-up in the 1,500-meter run (3:50.97) for the first of his two second-place showings at the meet. Junior Lance Nemecek (1:54.55), junior Cullen Moore (1:55.75), and sophomore Christian Fells (1:55.87) all qualified for the finals of the 800-meter run, with Nemecek posting the top qualifying time of the day.

Sophomore Max Albertson grabbed honorable-mention honors in the long jump for the second season in a row by placing fifth with a mark of 6.86 meters (22′ 6 ¼”) on his first attempt. Senior Andrew Cogley also scored for the Oles in the high jump after taking eighth by clearing 1.87 meters (6′ 1 ½”).

SATURDAY RECAP

Nemecek’s victory in the 800-meter run and Fitzgerald’s school record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase paced the Oles on day two, as St. Olaf wound up third in the team standings. St. Olaf had three top-three and 11 top-six performances on the final day.

Nemecek won his first individual conference title in the 800-meter run, edging Bethel’s Victor Lelinga by less than three-tenths of a second in 1:51.32. That time ranks second on St. Olaf’s all-time list, as Nemecek won the Oles’ first title in the event since Kevin Skrip ’16 in 2015-16. Fells (5th, 1:53.38) and Moore (7th, 1:53.83) were separated by less than half a second in the scoring places as well.

Fitzgerald broke the school record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase set by Will Kelly ’24 by less than one second with his runner-up time of 8:52.30, collecting his second All-MIAC accolade in as many days in the process. The performance also solidified Fitzgerald in qualifying for the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships, as the time ranks seventh nationally.

Junior Jack Deaver rose to seventh on St. Olaf’s all-time list and secured All-MIAC honors with a third-place finish in the 3,00-meter steeplechase (9:10.33) to give the Oles two of the top three in the event. Sophomore Lex Kaye was also in the top five, earning Honorable Mention All-MIAC honors in fifth (9:34.52).

The day after finishing 1-2 in the 10,000-meter run, Skemp and Turlington placed fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 5,000-meter run with times of 15:13.04 and 15:13.13. Senior Eh Ler Moo, first year Gavin Vogel, first year Luke Jones, and first year Jakob Eenigenburg added another honorable-mention accolade on the track with a sixth-place showing in the 4×100-meter relay (42.78).

St. Olaf had three other top-six results in the field events, led by a fourth-place finish from first year Kale Kardonsky in the shot put (15.09m, 49′ 6 ¼”). Albertson posted a personal-best mark in the triple jump to take fifth (13.68m, 44′ 10 ¾”), while Cogley was fifth in the javelin throw (53.70m, 176′ 2″), a result that ranks sixth on St. Olaf’s program list.