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Brandon Ching | ScoringLiveFebruary 15, 2024, 12:25am
Wed, Feb 14, 2024 @ McKinley
HONOLULU — Down, but never out.
In a tale of two halves, Kaimuki chipped away and rallied from a 20-point third quarter deficit to top Aiea, 63-58, to win their first OIA Division II title since 2022 at McKinley's Student Council Gymnasium.
The Bulldogs (8-4 OIA) win their third-straight game to clinch their fourth overall league title and a seeded berth in the HHSAA/Heide & Cook Division II Boys Basketball State Championships starting on Feb. 22.
Bulldogs' senior guard Daysen Lupica scored 19 points on 8-of-17 shooting with four assists and five steals.
Harmon Sio, a 6-4 center, provided a much-needed spark and poured in 19 points on 9-of-11 shooting off the bench.
Jeremiah White overcame early foul trouble in the first half and scored 10 of his 15 in the fourth and was 10 for 14 from the free throw line overall.
"I want to thank my Lord and Savior and God for the opportunity and for helping us to get to through this journey and get to the point where we are now," White said.
Greydon Espinda won his second Division II title with the Bulldogs as head coach in 2022 and now 2024.
"They all play for each other. On the court, off the court, they hang out with each other, they take care of each other and push each other," Espinda said.
Shealand Kazama led Na Alii (5-7 OIA) with a double-double, 18 and 10, Taylor Moku scored 12 points with four steals, and Stefan Ognjanovic netted 11, and Noah Park chipped in eight.
To open the fourth, Regan Fritz-Betiru hit a 3-pointer from the inbound and Sio scored from the left block to tie the game at 46 to force a Aiea timeout. Sio tied the game at 48 and White's free throws gave the Bulldogs their first lead since he hit the opening points of the first quarter.
"Coach just said, keep our heads up with the shot clock because it could be anyone's game still. Once the crowd started getting into it, we had more energy. The bench started getting hyped and we trusted each other," Lupica said.
Kazama split a pair of free throws before Sio scored from the block and trailed and hit a layup in transition from Fritz-Betiru to make it, 54-49.
Maurice Patton hit Na Alii's first field goal on a layup at the 2:48 mark. White split a pair of free throws and Lupica found Sio to put Kaimuki ahead, 57-51 and Sio later fouled out at the 1:05 mark where Kazama converted his free throws.
White converted 8 of his 10 free throws in the quarter to give Kaimuki a 61-53 lead with 16 seconds left. Santi Sarbeland scored off a putback and Kazama converted a 3-point play off a steal to bring Na Alii within three, 61-58. White iced the game with a pair of free throws as the Bulldogs outscored Na Alii, 24 to 12 in the final period.
"I wanted to close it out really bad. I wanted the ball really bad and felt like I could close the game out," White said.
"Jeremiah came back into the game, we had to put a lot of attention on him. When we did, we seem to have forgotten about their other 3-point shooters and we weren't closing out or communicating. He draws a lot of attention, but that's no excuse. We need communicate and we didn't down the stretch," Aiea coach Robert Godinez said.
Na Alii went through a six-game losing streak, losing to Radford, Kapolei, and Campbell by single digits and losing to state qualifier Nanakuli and OIA Division I finalists Leilehua and Mililani. Aiea won their next three games by an average of 16.3 points to reach the league final and state tournament for the first time since 2008.
"It's big, it's big for the community. It's good for these kids. They worked really, really hard to be here. It's a matter of regrouping and we're not done with basketball yet. They have a lot of support from their community and they know it. We have to rebound from it and see how far we go next week," Godinez said.
Kaimuki had a tough, three-game stretch, dropping those contests to Division I state tournament qualifiers, Kalaheo, Kahuku, and Kailua in that order before rattling off three-straight in the OIA playoffs to win the title.
Na Alii closed out the first quarter on a 9-2 run to take a 18-11 lead. Kazama hit a pull up jumper and Moku had a steal and layup. Ognjanovic hit a floater and Lupica scored his sixth point before Moku drained a 3 from Park's kick out pass.
"Shots were falling, one. We were making the extra pass, especially in transition. Second half, we tend to dribble a lot more and we didn't move the ball as good as we did in the first half," Godinez said.
"Their win loss record doesn't mean anything. That record doesn't indicate how they are. They're a good team. They're fast and we couldn't stop them going to the basket," Espinda said.
White picked up his second foul midway through the first quarter and would check back in at the 3:40 mark in the second.
"It was frustrating. I had to trust my teammates and lean onto them as well as the coaches. It was hard watching it from the side, but I knew there was a whole second half coming and we knew what to do," White said.
Lupica's jumper got Kaimuki within six, but Aiea broke a 9-9 tie and went on a 11-3 run to go up 13 off Ognjanovic's 3-pointer from the right corner. Kaimuki shot 4 of 13 from the field and were able to get within 12. Aiea shot 9 of 16 from the floor and closed out the quarter on a 6-0 run as Patton scored off a putback and fast break layup for a 38-20 lead at halftime.
"Not to fall apart as a team and stay together," White said of the halftime message. "We built this brotherhood for the past two, three years and we couldn't let it crumble after one half. We knew we had a whole half coming."
"Looking at our team, we was down bad. Our coaches were yelling in the locker room, ‘We're still in this, we're not done yet. We know what we got inside of our hearts that we know we could do this and we worked," Sio said.
Aiea made 16 of their 30 field goals in the first half while Kaimuki was 9 of 28 from the field.
Aiea went up by 20 twice early in the third quarter on shots from Moku and Kazama.
"With a shot clock, 20 points is not a big difference. At the half, we said at half, ‘Play basketball. Take your shots, it will go in and have confidence when you shoot the ball. We started to knock down the 3s in the second half," Espinda said.
Sio hit a corner 3, but Moku answered on the other end with a drive to go up, 44-26. Lupica sparked a 13-2 run to close out the quarter as White skipped it to him for a corner triple.
"Staying together and the crowd. Once the crowd into it, it's really hard to beat us and it gives us motivation and an extra energy boost. Knowing that we have that crowd behind us, even if we do mess up, we have support team to lean back on," White said.
"The kids played great, they played with their hearts. They never say die, they're so resilient," Espinda said.
Park hit the last field goal for Na Alii as the Bulldogs answered with 10-unanswered points. Sio scored on the blocks and White and Lupica each hit 3s to whittle the deficit to single digits, 46-39 heading into the fourth.
"There were a lot mismatches. I told the guards to lob it to me and I can do it," Sio said.
"That's a tough matchup," Godinez on Sio. "We were considering sacrificing defense for offense, but we thought we needed buckets at the same time, we wanted to keep our better offensive team out there. We still got the shots we normally would take, but they just didn't fall," Godinez said.
"We felt when they let us get a few shots in. When we get a few shots, we can really do something dangerous and come back from a lead," White said.
Kaimuki shot 7 of 16 from the field, including 4 of 5 from the perimeter to get back in the game. Moku, Park, and Kazama combined to score eight quarter points as Na Alii shot 4 of 12 from the floor.
"They were killing us in the first half. They were setting up their half court offense and they're quick. Drive, kick, and finish around the rim. We wanted to make them put the ball on the ground and we pressed to cause them to scramble and not get their rhythm back. That's what happened in the first half, they had a good rhythm, they were hitting everything, every layup and shot. It was hard to stop and we had to make the adjustment to press them to make them take quick passes and shots and transition the other way," White said.
"We brought the defense up to the three quarter court and we started trapping and pressing and play the game faster and it worked. Thank goodness (Ognjanovic) I don't think he had anything in the second half, in the first half he tore us apart, he's a great shooter," Espinda said.
Kaimuki finished 14 of 30 (46.7 percent) from the field in the second half to finish 23 of 58 (39.7 percent) overall.
Aiea shot 23 of 62 overall from the field, was 7 of 32 in the second half, and hit 10 of their 14 free throws.
Aiea edged Kaimuki on the boards 43 to 42. Iosefa Letuli grabbed a game-high 16 rebounds for the Bulldogs and Santi Sarbeland hauled down 15 for Na Alii.
Na Alii scored 38 of their points in the paint while the Bulldogs tried to establish the 6-5 Letuli and 6-4 Sio.
"The game plan was to go in. The points in the paint, we may had 20 or 30. We were able to take it on the inside and when the inside was guarded, we kicked it out and finally, the shots started to drop," Espinda said.
"We aren't very big ourselves. It was a matter being first to the ball. We got some good rebounds in the first half that we didn't get in the second. It was tough containing them. We moved away from the extra pass for the wide open shot. We were challenging their bigs too much, but that's correctable heading into the states next week," Godniez said.
Aiea won back-to-back Division II league titles in 2007-08 under current Campbell coach Wyatt Tau.
Kaimuki won OIA titles in 2007-08 under Kelly Grant, current Maryknoll coach, and in 1993 under Raymond Fujino, Executive Director of the OIA.
The state tournament bracket will be later announced on Friday when all teams are finalized.
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