Radford stays unbeaten with blowout win over Waipahu

Radford's Mailana Mattos gets to the bucket against Waipahu in the first half of an OIA West contest. Brian Bautista | SL

The Radford girls basketball team was firing on all cylinders Thursday night.

Mailana Mattos and Jirah Villanueva combined for 50 points as the Rams improved to 7-0 in the regular season with a 72-33 win over visiting Waipahu at the Jim Alegre Gymnasium.

Radford forced 29 total turnovers in the win and got out in transition multiple times to blitz the Marauders, who suffered their second straight loss and dropped to 4-2 in OIA West play.

Waipahu's starting center Amelia Heimuli still had a double-double of 15 points and 12 rebounds, but it was offset by 21 steals and multiple second-chance and fast-break opportunities by the Rams.

"We were working on our transition game," said Radford coach Charles Chong. "(Waipahu's) advantage is their size and our advantage is our speed and getting the horses out of the gates."

Mattos finished with 26 points with seven rebounds, seven assists and four steals to go with two 3-pointers made. She splashed a buzzer-beating triple before halftime to give the Rams a 33-21 lead at the break and got another trey to fall with a minute left in the third quarter to give Radford a 30-point lead.

Villanueva also knocked down two triples and finished with 24 points with four assists and three steals. She was a key piece defensively and was locked in, recording a strip steal and a transition bucket five seconds into the second half.

"They are coming together as scorers and more importantly as leaders at the right time," Chong said of the duo.

Casey McKinney was also solid off the bench with 10 points and seven rebounds and a block to battle Waipahu's bigs. She split a pair of free throws at the line to give the Rams a 40-point lead at one point in the fourth quarter.

"Casey is hobbled by some injuries, but she wants to play," Chong said. "You can tell that when she gets on the court that she wants to compete. It's nice to see."

Kenzie McCormick added six points and seven rebounds, Olena Umetsu had four points and five assists and Julissa Bollinger did a little bit of everything with two points, four rebounds, four assists and five steals to round out the Rams who scored.

Reserve guards Kaali Aviles and Aniyah Clark also got involved in the defensive game plan with five total steals among themselves.

Reach Michael Lasquero at [email protected].