Outrigger 17U boys volleyball team looks to shine at TransPacific Championships

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The name Outrigger is synonymous with volleyball.

In total, the club has won 36 National Indoor Championships and just last year the 18-and-under squad took home the title at the TransPacific Championships

A squad that included now Rainbow Warrior outside hitter Kainoa Wade. Wade along with his teammates have all since aged out of the club and there lies the challenge.

The Outrigger 17u team is set to compete up a division and hopes to carry on the legacy set by the teams before them.

“Our job right now is to play to our standards, we believe we can win, we believe we can beat anybody in the tournament,” Outrigger volleyball director Armen Zakarian said. “We know it’s not going to be easy and so I think rather than focusing on the wins and the losses, we just want to focus on the things we can control.”

Instead of dwelling in the past, the team is choosing to focus on themselves and try to carve their own path.

“Not so much from like the players, but just from the name of playing for Outrigger there were some good guys on the last team from the 18,” Player Isaiah Holeso said. “So just like trying to match their level is definitely something that’s there and just something that not always be talk about though.”

The team is hoping their time at the TransPac can continue to strengthen their chemistry.

“Playing in these tournaments is also like really good like bonding experience for us to like go out there and like show Hawaii who we are,” Player Lionel Gannon said. “What we can do and like show that we can like go and compete with these like really good 18 teams, 17 teams in our age group.”

Without the pressure of trying to replicate the teams of the past, the sky’s the limit.

“We really can potentially catapult us to where we want to be, right, which is, you know, at the top.”

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