Falcons, Rough Riders win third FT championship


ScoringLive staff
February 16, 2019, 11:37pm

From left to right: ScoringLive founder Brien Ing, Kalani's Kalena Halunajan and Hallie Birdsong, Roosevelt's Jason Doyle and Jared Nonaka. Michael Lasquero | SL

KAKAAKO — Kalani girls and Roosevelt boys took top honors at the Third Annual ScoringLive Free Throw Championship Saturday morning as a part of The Hawaii Pacific Health Great Aloha Run Sports Health & Fitness Expo at the Neal S. Blaisdell Exhibition Hall.

Kalena Halunajan and Hallie Birdsong took down defending champion Mid-Pacific, 16-9, in the championship matchup of the girls competition, while it was the second consecutive year Roosevelt came out on top in the boys bracket. The pair of Jason Doyle and Jared Nonaka defeated the Damien duo of Lindon Sevilleja Jr. and Jeremy Marquette, 30-29, in the championship round.

Kalani became the first girls team to win the grand championship, defeating Roosevelt, 35-29, in the final head-to-head battle.

Both winning teams took home the coveted ScoringLive Free Throw Championship Trophy as well as $500 for their respective sports programs.

Six boys teams and nine girls teams participated in the single-elimination event and were seeded in order of their ranking on the Taco Bell Free Throw Challenge Leaderboard, which tracks how well they shot free throws during the regular season and league play. Free throw statistics had to have been submitted for every league game played in order to qualify for the contest.

Each team was given 60 seconds to make as many free throws as possible with 30 seconds of time being split between the two representatives. In the case of ties, additional rounds of 60 seconds were played until there was a winner.

A pair from the Punahou girls team played in a place of one of two boys teams who were unavailable at the start time of the competition.

Special thanks to Carole Kai and the Great Aloha Run, and IPR Hawaii for their support of the event.