So much for a "rebuilding year" in Punahou School boys volleyball.

Even with a fresh lineup full of unfamiliar faces and a new head coach, the three-time defending state champion Buffanblu flexed their muscles once again last night with a 25-17, 25-21 sweep of 'Iolani in a matchup of Interscholastic League of Honolulu unbeatens.

A vocal home crowd of about 800 at Hemmeter Fieldhouse watched Punahou, ranked No. 2 in The Advertiser's statewide Top 10 poll of coaches and media, improve to 7-0 in the ILH. Top-ranked 'Iolani fell to 6-1.

Despite graduating two Pac-10 Conference recruits (Stanford's Spencer McLachlin and Southern California's Riley McKibbin) plus an All-State libero (Colan Ishii), the Buffanblu extended their four-year, regular and postseason win streak to 63 matches.

"This feels awesome," said junior outside hitter Maddison McKibbin, who finished with six kills and a match-high four blocks. "We have a nice new group of guys on this team, and the chemistry rocks, on and off the court as you can see."

It helps that while some faces have changed, many names are still familiar. Maddison McKibbin is Riley's brother; sophomores Taylor and Kaiwi Crabb come from a well-known volleyball family, as does senior Erik Shoji.

"They have the tradition, and those (new) guys buy into it," said 'Iolani coach Mike Among. "And their coaches did an excellent job preparing them. They expected to be ready to play, and they used that to their advantage. The rest of us need to find a way to break into that, but we didn't do a good enough job preparing our players. We have to go back to the drawing board."

Punahou took an early lead in the first game last night and did not let go.

After the Raiders closed it to 8-7 on a back-row kill by Brad Lawson, the Buffanblu used a balanced attack to fuel a 7-2 run and go up, 15-9. Lawson notched two kills and a block to close 'Iolani to 19-14, but McKibbin answered with two kills to help push the lead to 24-15.

Kaiwi Crabb ended it on a quick hit in the middle.

The Raiders came back stronger in the second game and built a 16-12 lead as Punahou's first-year coach, Rick Tune, called a timeout. The Buffanblu eventually tied it at 17-17, then took their first lead at 21-20 on Kaiwi Crabb's block.

Crabb then had another spike down the middle to make it 23-21, Henry Cassiday slammed home an overpass and 'Iolani committed a net violation to end it.

"I'm happy with the way things are going so far, but it's still early in the season, and this is only one step along the way," Tune said. "We passed our test today, but we'll see them again in two weeks (at 'Iolani on April 25)."

Lawson led the Raiders with a match-high 15 kills. Cassiday had seven kills to lead a balanced Punahou attack, and Shoji — who has signed a national letter of intent to play for Stanford next season — added six kills.

Read Wes' blog on prep sports at http://preptalk.honadvblogs.com