It's no secret, Hawai'i Baptist needs to play scrappy, full-court-coverage defense to be successful.

Having sophomore sensations Sarah Palmer and C'era Oliveira killing nearly every set is the icing on the cake.

Hawai'i Baptist used its trademark defense, and 19 combined kills from Palmer and Oliveira, to beat visiting Word of Life, 27-25, 25-14, last night in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu Division II Round 2 tournament final.

Hawai'i Baptist (13-4), also the regular-season champion, will be the ILH's seeded team in the state tournament 10 days from now.

"The girls worked hard all season to get to this point, but our goal is to be a state champion and this is the first step we had to take," said Hawai'i Baptist coach Myles Shioji.

It was the Eagles' first ILH title. In previous years, they played in Division I.

"We played as a team and we came so far from being the bottom of DI to the top of DII," Oliveira said.

Word of Life (11-6) and University High, which beat Hanalani for third place yesterday, also will represent the ILH.

Palmer, a 5-foot-9 outside hitter, had a feeling the Eagles would be popping up a lot of balls prior to the match.

"It depends on how we do in the warmups," she said. "If we do really good, then chances are we'll do really well in the game because defense is what we're all about."

When asked if the warmups went well last night, she said: "Yeah, we were doing really good. We were really ready for this game."

Palmer had four kills and two hitting errors in the first game, and eight kills and no errors in the second

"Sarah, she takes a lot of our swings," Shioji said. "I can't say enough about her."

Oliveira, a 5-foot-6 outside hitter, had seven kills and one error.

Hawai'i Baptist nearly let a 23-18 advantage get away in the first game. The Firebrands fought off four game points, including three Eagles' hitting errors, and tied it at 24. It was tied at 25 when Palmer got the final two points of the game on a kill and block of a dump attempt.

"They did a good job trying to fight their way back, but we started off the game spotting them too big of a lead," said Word of Life coach Lee Ann Satele.

Hawai'i Baptist got out to a 6-1 lead in the second game and was never threatened. Word of Life only had five kills in the game after getting 13 in the first.

"That's what we pride ourselves on is defense," Shioji said. "God didn't bless us with the height and athleticism that other teams have, but we scrap and work hard."

The Eagles finished with 25 kills and seven aces.

Chanteal Satele, the coach's daughter, had 10 kills to lead Word of Life.

Reach Kyle Sakamoto at ksakamoto@honoluluadvertiser.com.