Moanalua’s ‘Big 3’ represent present, future in Hawaii volleyballBy Paul Honda
4/11/23, Honolulu Star-Advertiser
JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
Moanalua senior volleyball stars Kai Rodriguez, left, Zack Yewchuk, and Justin Todd have signed to play for the University of Hawaii next season.
JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO@STARADVERTISER.COM
The Moanalua boys varsity volleyball team is 27-3 this season and was ranked No. 6 in the USA Today Super 25 before suffering a five-set loss to Punahou on Saturday.
There are no vampires in Kai Rodriguez’s hometown.
When the 6-foot-3 outside hitter left Gilroy, Calif. — self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World” — and arrived at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, he was ready for the next chapter: senior year at Moanalua High School.
Being in Honolulu has its benefits, such as taking in the defending two-time NCAA champion Hawaii Rainbow Warriors’ games.
“I love going to UH games. When I was vacationing here, I’d play beach volleyball, and some of my supporters are now my friends. They followed my journey and that’s really cool,” he said.
Rodriguez, Justin Todd and Zack Yewchuk, a.k.a. the “Big 3,” originated from faraway places and relocated to the islands with one goal: to play for the UH men’s volleyball team. All three had been recruited, then committed to the Warriors and coach Charlie Wade. They officially signed in the winter.
The byproduct has been superb for Moanalua, which is ranked No. 6 in the USA Today Super 25. Na Menehune had a strong showing at the Best of the West tournament last month, and followed that with a championship run at the Hawaii Invitational, beating host ‘Iolani in the final. They suffered a five-set loss to Punahou in the championship match of the Clash of the Titans event on Saturday.
There has been a bit of culture shock, even as volleyball and academics dominate their waking hours. Yewchuk had never tried Spam before.
“The first time I had Spam, not my favorite thing, but as my friends kind of forced me to eat it more and more, I like it now. At tournaments, there would be a parent to bring Spam musubi, so you eat whatever you have. I grew to like it,” he said.
“I had committed to UH right before I left Canada. Even before I played volleyball, I always wanted to go to UH. We vacationed here, turn on the TV and it’s Spectrum Sports and it’s always a UH sport. I want to play pro and the coaches here are really, really good. Players from here have gone on to play pro. The atmosphere is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” he said.
Meanwhile, Todd misses at least one thing about his hometown of Houston.
“Barbecue ribs. As someone who grew up in Texas, we had ribs all the time,” he said.
There is one thing that’s different for Todd now. He has friends with kitchen skills.
“My friend Adam (Haidar) makes a great pumpkin pie. Kalen (Smith)’s brownies are really good,” Todd said of his Outrigger club teammates. “Honestly, the best brownies I’ve ever had. It’s kind of weird. I don’t know why I have so many friends who like to bake.”
Shoes off, Todd and Yewchuk say they are 6 feet, 7 inches tall. They give Moanalua a kind of big blue wall never seen before on campus. Yewchuk grew up running everywhere, son of a track coach (Scott Yewchuk), playing lots of sports. But his future in volleyball could have been derailed.
“I’m diabetic, so I can’t drink other drinks besides Diet Pepsi. I have a machine that is connected to my side and gives me insulin all day. I take it off when I play,” he said. “When I was young, the doctors told me no sports, so we ended up switching doctors.”
Todd’s passing skills allow him to stay on the court full-time. Yewchuk’s serve is one of the best in the state.
“We do a ton of passing and serving at practice,” Moanalua coach Alan Cabanting said. “Kai has always been a great passer. JT is the one that we were worried most about, but he’s really taken into the program and getting all the reps he can. He knows every team will be attacking him on the serve. From the beginning of the season until now, instead of attacking him, other teams are having to attack other players, which is great. Every day he gets better at passing. He wants to get better.”
Todd grew up playing volleyball under his father, Jason Todd. Rodriguez is trained under the watchful eyes of the father, Ramon Rodriguez. Kai Rodriguez was always at his sister Jada’s practices, where Ramon was a coach.
“My dad always said it’s the small things that will kill you. He really broke it down piece by piece. All his practices start out with 100 passes and 100 sets,” Rodriguez said.
Moanalua’s work on passing has been a point of emphasis by Cabanting and his staff.
“I like to hit the ball, so it came pretty naturally. I didn’t really like passing that much when I first started,” Todd said. I feel like I always had a good platform, but I didn’t really try to be the best passer I can be until recently. Our coach at Outrigger, he said, ‘You might be one of the best attackers I’ve ever seen, but you suck at passing.’ It was brutal, but he’s like a real friend.”
Big 3 impactPunahou coach Rick Tune and ‘Iolani coach Jordan Inafuku saw the impact of the Big 3 right away.
“It’s a lot of fun playing this type of high-level volleyball against a team this big and talented,” Tune said. “The first time I saw Kai play was beach at the Outrigger Canoe Club. He’s a smooth, fluid player with great athleticism and feel for the game. I’m impressed with his leadership, humility and feel for the game. I think he is a fantastic addition to the UH roster.”
Inafuku has clear memories of watching Rodriguez play.
“I have been coaching against Kai for a number of years during the club volleyball season, where he starred at Bay to Bay Volleyball Club, winning the 2023 national championship for the 17U Open Division and being named the tournament’s most valuable player,” Inafuku said. “Kai has grown tremendously. He’s always had a great volleyball IQ and all-around skill set, but he’s added physicality and leaping ability that has taken his game to a higher level.”
Coach Tune got a look at Todd in Texas during club season.
“The first time I saw Justin was at the Austin qualifier last year. Justin is a tremendous physical talent. You don’t find that many 6-7 kids that have that level of skill and athleticism,” Tune said. “If he continues to work hard and develop his game, he is going to be a tremendous force at the next level. He’s also a really personable kid that seems fun loving and a great teammate.”
Yewchuk’s work ethic has been crucial, Tune noted.
“The first time I saw Zack was last year playing for Damien. He’s really improved his jump serve and he’s made great strides as a middle blocker this year learning the position,” Tune said. “He’s another really physical kid that possesses great athleticism and gives a very physical presence at the net.”
Their paths have differed in subtle ways. Yewchuk’s family moved from Vancouver before his junior year. He enrolled at Damien, where is mother still works. Rodriguez opted to come to Oahu, where an aunty lives. His father and brother are back in Gilroy, but his mother, Sophia, made the move as well. She commutes back and forth, but for the most part, Rodriguez thrives on mom’s cooking.
“I can make (instant) ramen,” he noted.
Sons of coachesTodd, like Rodriguez, is the son of a volleyball coach. He tried just about every sport as a youngster before settling on volleyball.
“I was 11 when I started playing. I didn’t like it at all for three years, but my dad (Jason Todd) took me to practice. I was just playing a lot of video games,” Todd said. “But I just started getting good when I was 15. UH saw me at U.S. nationals. I was really confused because I didn’t think they knew who I was. Coach Wade was scouting me, but I didn’t think they were going to recruit me because they’re UH. I didn’t think I was good enough.”
Cabanting went online when he learned about the new arrivals.
“They told me about JT. I wondered if there was a video around, so I see this long-haired kid, just really raw but hits really well,” Cabanting recalled. “I’m just looking at the kid, OK, what is this? Then he comes on campus and his hair is cut. I think he prepared for Hawaii because he looked like your typical surfer boy. He’s a little bit more polished. I’m just like, wait, that’s not the guy that I saw on the video. He’s typical Texas, very respectful, yes sir, that kind of deal.”
Todd, or “JT,” doesn’t miss the long locks at all.
“I changed my hair because it got in the way too much,” he said. “And I didn’t like the look very much.”
The business-like approach on the court came naturally. By moving to Hawaii, the three players established residency status, which brings a lower tuition cost at UH. For a program that has a limited number of scholarships, bringing costs down makes a big difference for the families of recruits. The opportunity to play for a two-time defending national champion was irresistible.
“For me, it was I want to be in California and the exception is being in Hawaii. I started getting looks from colleges and it came down to UCLA and Hawaii,” Rodriguez said. “I’m going mostly for the high-level volleyball. Then it was what are we going to do to pay for it. Someone mentioned in-state tuition. Is this a possibility moving out here, living here? We figured it out. Then we looked at the pros and cons, I’d be able to play for Outrigger, coached by Charlie Wade, get an extra year of coaching from him before I get to college.”
Beneficial lossAt 27-3, Moanalua has been on the radar all season, at least in the eyes of the state’s top title contenders. No other Hawaii team is currently ranked nationally, but it’s debatable. Kamehameha went 7-1 in the ILH to earn an automatic state-tournament berth. ‘Iolani and Punahou went 5-3 and will play a tiebreaker match tonight. ILH teams sharpened one another, and extended that gift to Moanalua over the weekend.
Moanalua went 3-0 in pool play in the Clash of the Titans tournament, then lost to Punahou in the final. It was a five-set war for the ages. Some fans wondered aloud if this was a preview of the state tourney final, but neither team has sealed a state berth yet.
The gift is that Moanalua’s sense of urgency went from good to completely activated.
“I woke up today and I was ready to hit training. I think we’re going to hit training at least twice as hard as before,” Yewchuk said on Sunday. “None of us want to lose. Losing sucks, so we’re going to do everything in our power to do what we can.”
Todd had 25 kills and five blocks in the loss, Moanalua’s first since Best of the West.
“It’s better that we lost now rather than being overly confident going into state championships. We’ll work on our weaknesses before states,” he said. “We need to set the middles more.”
The same mechanism that requires ILH teams to adapt and evolve is in motion for Moanalua.
“They were so perfectly positioned, and we still got to a fifth set,” Rodriguez said. “Our bond got so much stronger. We got so much closer. It really showed us what we need to start working on. The big thing I noticed was out-of-system setting. We have big jumpers on the pins, need to get them closer to the net.”
It is a quiet confidence and a silent fury.
“Nobody was super pissed. A lot of us were … we played pretty well. We played a good team and they played strong, senior night, huge crowd. Good on them. We can do better,” Yewchuk said.
In Moanalua’s sweep of nationally ranked Corona Del Mar (Calif.) on Friday at Clash of the Titans, returnees stepped in and closed the match out with a plethora of kills. It was a high-energy, low-key team in years past, when Na Menehune perennially excelled in the OIA and regularly reached the final four at states. That culture still remains with their new brothers in blue.
“I know the focus is on us, but I’d like to see appreciation for the guys who were already here and are so welcoming to us,” Rodriguez said. “We couldn’t do it without them. It’s not just us three transfers. We’re in a team game.”
Moanalua has never won a boys volleyball state title. No public school has taken the crown since Roosevelt in 1979. Punahou has won the past nine championships, and 11 of the past 12, under Tune.
Meanwhile, the long-distance connection keeps flowing. Rodriguez gets his mother to make enchiladas occasionally, but he misses his father’s pancakes.
“He has been making those pancakes forever. He’ll make them with blueberries or chocolate chips, and he’ll make it from scratch,” Rodriguez said. “We talk on the phone every day.
Todd’s family has endured. Jason Todd values his son’s perseverance and stoic approach, but it has not been easy being apart.
“It was and still is extremely difficult, but we all ultimately based the decision on what our hearts were telling us, which was for Justin to go to Hawaii,” Jason Todd said. “Justin has had little hesitation about embracing the challenges and committing to his goals, and puts in the work to make it happen. He has done this since he fell in love with volleyball and followed his heart.”
The family time that Jason and Pauline Todd have sacrificed will resume some day. Just not yet.
“We’ve missed all the joys and sorrows, and not being there physically when he needs us,” Jason Todd said. “And all the missed moments of sharing our lives together.”
KAI RODRIGUEZ, JUSTIN TODD, ZACK YEWCHUK FAVORITESMoanalua volleyball seniors
KAI RODRIGUEZ>> Top 3 movies/shows: 1. “Star Wars,” 2. Marvel Cinematic Universe, 3. “One Piece”
>> Top 3 food/snacks/drinks: 1. Sushi, 2. Boba, 3. Bacon burger (Betty’s Burgers)
>> Top 3 homemade foods: 1. Mom’s enchiladas, 2. Dad’s pancakes, 3. Dad’s breakfast. “My mom (Sophia) is here with me. She makes enchiladas when I ask. The way she makes it is not conventional. She puts her own twist on it. I don’t know what it is. My dad (Ramon) has been making these pancakes forever.”
>> Top 3 music artists: 1. Queen (“Killer Queen”), 2. Michael Jackson (“Rock with You”), 3. J Boog (“Let’s Do it Again”)
>> Favorite class and teacher: Algebra III, Mr. (Robert) Rivera. “I really like the teacher. We do our work and at the end of class, he’ll let us watch a movie and talk about food.”
>> Favorite athlete/team: Taylor Crabb/UH volleyball
>> Funniest teammate: Keola DeMello. “He always has that quick one-liner. He’ll make everyone laugh.”
>> Smartest teammate: Jaycen Bush. “We did an escape room recently and he carried us all the way. It was in Waikiki.”
>> GPA: 3.4
>> Time machine: “This was a tough one. I narrowed it down. I think I’d want to go back and see the creation of the sport of volleyball.”
>> Hidden talent: “I’m not bad at ping pong.”
>> New life skill: “Definitely, learning to live on my own. My mom travels back and forth sometimes to see my brother (Diego, 14).”
>> Bucket list: “Beach national team. Winning a national championship for UH. The traveling comes with getting on those big teams.”
>> Shoutouts: “My family made this all possible, sacrificing for me to be out her. And everyone that I’ve played with or against, they’ve all made me better.”
JUSTIN TODD>> Top 3 movies/shows: 1. “Avengers: Endgame,” 2. “Shrek 2,” 3. “Shrek.” “Shrek is a funny guy. I like to see how he turns around. He starts out as an ogre and nobody likes him, but once you progress through the story he proves he’s just a cool guy who saves the princess. I like Donkey, I like all the characters. Lord Farquaad is also interesting.”
>> Top 3 food/snacks/drinks: 1. Sushi (Keeper’s in Houston). 2. Barbecue ribs (Killen’s Barbecue, Houston). 3. Vanilla ice cream (Blue Bell).
>> Top 3 homemade foods: 1. My grandma’s chocolate chip cookies. 2. My friend Adam (Haidar)’s pumpkin pie. 3. My friend Kalen (Smith)’s brownies. “My grandma (Carol Reed) makes the best cookies.”
>> Top 3 music artists (and your favorite song by each): 1. Travis Scott (“Sicko Mode”). 2. Future (“Solo”). 3. Ramirez (“The Fo Five”). “I have a reason why. Travis Scott went to the neighboring high school of mine in Houston. He’s got that Houston style and I like that.”
>> Favorite class: Art. “I like to draw. I took art any time I had an elective. I’ve taken art at least six times. I won an art contest and they put it on display at a rodeo when I was third grade. I don’t really draw that much. I only drew in class. I still do doodles and stuff. Art makes me better at volleyball. I feel like it helps me visualize stuff. I like to draw myself winning volleyball games. Sometimes it’s just stick figures.”
>> Favorite teacher: Mrs. (Tabitha) Mansell, art class. “I was in fifth grade at Scanlan Oaks Elementary School. She was just like really encouraging about art and stuff.”
>> Favorite athlete/team: Colton Cowell/UH volleyball. “UH volleyball is my favorite team.”
>> Funniest teammate: Alex Parks (former Outrigger teammate now at UH). “I played one tournament with him. He’s a super goofy guy. He says funny stuff.”
>> Smartest teammate: Adam Haidar. “My teammate at Outrigger. As you know, he makes pumpkin pies and he has a high GPA.”
>> GPA: 3.0
>> Time machine: “I don’t think I would do anything with that. I like where I’m at right now. The future is too far ahead. There’s too much to experience in between.”
>> Hidden talent: “I’m actually really good at juggling. I can juggle three things for a really long time.”
>> Bucket list: “I’d really like to go to all the continents, see everything. Not Antarctica.”
>> Shoutouts: “I want to shout out Adam and Kalen. My brother Trevor, and Jack Lyons. Miss Tabitha.
ZACK YEWCHUK>> Top 3 movies/shows: 1. “Stranger Things,” 2. “The Hobbit” trilogy, 3. “Outer Banks”
>> Top 3 Canadian cities: 1. Vancouver, 2. Edmonton, 3. Nanaimo, Victoria Island. “My grandparents live in Nanaimo.”
>> Top 3 food/snacks/drinks: 1. Baby back ribs, Outback Steakhouse, 2. Diet Pepsi, 3. Spam musubi.
>> Top 3 homemade foods: 1. Dad’s steak and burgers. 2. Mom’s Portuguese soup. “My dad (Scott) is a really great cook. I love my dad’s steak. He also makes really good burgers. We’ve had fish a couple times, which is great. My mom (Lila) makes some really good soups. I like this Portuguese sausage with carrots, potatoes, a beef broth. I’m not sure if it was PS but basically that. We had this place in Canada that sold nice meat.”
>> Top 3 music artists (and your favorite song by each): 1. Juice WRLD (“Wishing Well”), 2. Drake (“God’s Plan”), 3. Green Day (“Boulevard of Broken Dreams”). “Every volleyball match back home, the first or second song is something by Drake.”
>> Favorite class and teacher: Wood working (grades 8-11). “This teacher was absolutely awesome. Mr. Brian Fasse. I got to make a lot of cool things. He taught me to become an artisan.”
>> Favorite athlete/team: Ivan Zaytsev (Italy). “He’s just a dominant, physical player. He hits the ball with such precision and incredible power. He had the fastest serve in the world for awhile, around 135 kilometers per hour.”
>> Funniest teammate: Malu Wilcox. “This one is rough. He’s always doing something funny like eating a whole bunch of Skittles. It’s a personality trait. Every day, the whole team, we all eat Skittles.”
>> Smartest teammate: Logan Ho. “He’s got, I believe, the highest GPA of all of us, somewhere around 4.2.”
>> GPA: 3.84. “Sports have definitely helped me with sports and academics. If I didn’t play volleyball, it might be a touch higher.”
>> Time machine: “I would go back to the time of the Persian Wars in ancient Greece. I love history. I would love to have seen the technology and strategy and the way the cities looked. See if the historical accounts are accurate. Sparta or Athens. See how they forged all their armor, built their boats.”
>> New life skill: “I carve wood and forge metal. I watched a lot of videos during quarantine. I kind of taught myself to forge in my garage. Stock removal pieces.”
>> Bucket list: “I definitely want to see some places. Italy, definitely Rome. Tahiti. France. Japan. See the kitanas and medieval swords.”
>> Shoutouts: “Shout out to the Moanalua team, the original guys there. They’re just great people. They’ve been really fun to get to know, and they are great volleyball players.”
