Damien's Shaun Apiki goes up for a shot as Hawaii Baptist's Isaac Liva defends in the first meeting between the two teams on January 8. Monarchs won 63-58. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Damien's Shaun Apiki goes up for a shot as Hawaii Baptist's Isaac Liva defends in the first meeting between the two teams on January 8. Monarchs won 63-58. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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The Damien boys' basketball team is finding itself in a battle of attrition these days.

Not only did the Monarchs drop Wednesday night's road game at Hanalani, 49-41, they may have lost yet another player to injury in the process. Senior wing Ezekiel Naum, who started the last two games after an injury to starter Royce Mori, went down with a knee injury against the Royals.

"Rocky's one of our star players and he's been out two games now and (Wednesday) night against Hanalani we lost Zeke to a possible ACL tear or ACL sprain," Damien coach Alvin Stephenson said when reached by phone Thursday morning. "The injuries are hurting us. We're just trying to stay healthy and see where we can go from here."

Mori, a senior wing, ranks second in scoring in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu Division II with a 15.0 points per game average. The Monarchs, who are tied for first place with Hanalani at 6-2, will have to rely on junior guard Kobe Ikari (14.1 ppg) and senior post Kapiina King (11.0 ppg) to pick up the slack.

"Going home (Wednesday) night the guys were a little upset and wondering how Zeke was doing. There were a lot of mixed emotions," Stephenson said. "A lot of how we come back from this will be on the leadership of Kobe Ikari and Kapiina King to pull the guys together to get through this little rough patch."

The schedule pays Stephenson's squad no favors as they will host Hawaii Baptist (5-2) in a pivotal game Friday and University High (4-4) — the only other team to hand the Monarchs a loss this season — Wednesday.

Damien got the better of HBA — by a score of 63-58 — in their first-round meeting back on Jan. 8.

"We just need to do everything a little bit better," Eagles' coach George Weeks said. "There's not a lot of margin for error for us, so we just need to make sure that we don't take any plays off and we do all the little things that won't show up in the statistics. "

HBA, which also lost to Hanalani just over a week ago, has taken things in stride this season.

"There's a lot of things out of our control, so we're just trying to stay focused now on the next task at hand, which is the next game, so we're really taking it one game at a time approach to this thing," Weeks said.

The Eagles feature the league's top scorer in BJ Hosaka, who is averaging 23.4 points per game.

"We've definitely grown and gotten better, yet at same time there are still many things we can work on and improve on, so we're doing what we can in that regard," said Weeks, who expects another hard-fought game Friday night.

"Damien is a tough team," Weeks said. "They're a good team and it's definitely going to be a challenge for us, so we're just going to go out there and do the best we can."

Tip off between the Eagles and Monarchs is set for 6 p.m. at the Damien Memorial Gym.