OIA Girls Basketball
Kahuku capped off 'hunting season' with first D1 league title in 14 years


 



Thu, Jan 24, 2019 @ Radford


Final 1 2 3 4  
Kalani (12-2, 22-9) 13 11132259
Kahuku (14-0, 16-6) 13 17 17 1663
L. Naeata 33 pts  2 3pm  13/18 FTs
K. Kamakawiwoole 21 pts  1 3pm  4/5 FTs
A. Tapusoa 12 tot  4 off  8 def
K. Kamakawiwoole 6 tot  1 off  5 def
L. Naeata 5 ast

The Kahuku girls basketball team had quite the insatiable appetite during the 2018-'19 season.

On Jan. 24, 2019 the Red Raiders parlayed that hunger into their first Division I league championship in 14 years with a 63-59 win over defending champ Kalani in the title game of the Oahu Interscholastic Association tournament.

"As a coaching staff and coaches we can only do so much, and the players understand that the rest of it is all on them — they're gonna be on the floor," Kahuku said Latoya Wily said.

The four-point win over the Falcons on a Thursday night at Radford's Jim Alegre Gymnasium completed an unblemished 14-0 run through the OIA by the Red Raiders, who hoisted the league D1 crown for the first time since winning back-to-back in 2004 and 2005.

"It was just a rewarding feeling, just being so happy for your players," said Wily, who was a senior on the 2004 championship team.

One of her assistants — and younger sister, Artevia — was a member of the 2005 title-winning team at Kahuku.

"As a player I always thought how amazing that feeling was to win it, but it's much more gratifying as a coach to see how much your players put in — they put in so much work — and then to finally get that payout, they get to win a championship, they get to bring back some pride to the north shore," Wily said.

The Red Raiders reached the OIA final with wins over Kapolei (48-38) and Kaiser (55-37) in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds, respectively.  Wily recalls hoping that the 18-point win over the Cougars just two days prior to the championship game would give her team some momentum going forward.

"I personally kind of like that. I kind of like it for momentum, I think maybe that's just me, but I just remember it was a lot of excitement," Wily reminisced about the 48-hour lead-up to the final. "At the same time we had to make sure that we were keeping the girls focused and calm, just reminding them every single day that, ‘This is what we came for.' "

The match-up in the championship game pitted a pair of teams that finished atop the East. Kalani's lone regular season loss was against Kahuku back on Dec. 18, 2018.

But in the 51-48 road win for the Red Raiders, the Falcons were without starters Kamalu Kamakawiwoole and Alayna Akiona.

Despite being at full strength for the rematch, Kalani — the No. 6 team in the ScoringLive/Hawaiian Electric Power Rankings at the time — was unable to overcome fifth-ranked Kahuku, which was led by sophomore Leiah Naeata's game-high 33 points.

The sophomore shot 13 of 18 from the free-throw line and grabbed five rebounds with five assists and two steals despite fouling out of the game with 70 seconds remaining.

"She did a great job," Wily said of Naeata. "Unfortunately she fouled out, but it really was what it was and it was next girl up. We still had a game to finish, we still had a title to snag and nobody was nervous. It wasn't a cocky thing, they just believed in each other that much and when Leiah fouled out, she still cheered her team on. She had to trust in the next girl just as much as the girl going in had to have that confidence as well."

Kahuku held a narrow two-point lead when Naeata fouled out. Kalani cut it to a one-point lead twice in the final minute, but the Red Raiders hit three of four free throws down the stretch to secure the win.

"Every single day in practice we shoot a lot of free throws," said Wily, whose team made 20 of 35 from the stripe that night. "We give them scenarios and we explain to them that a lot of games are won on the free throw line and a lot of games are lost on the free throw line and so that was a huge testament to them. That game was definitely won on the free throw line in the last few seconds, that's what sealed the deal pretty much."

Maya Claytor scored 14 points off the bench, including three of her team's five 3-pointers (Naeata hit the other two).

"It was a team effort and took total buy-in from everyone, but Maya Claytor definitely showed out. I mean, all the girls did, but I think she had a big role in that game and it just added more depth to our team having somebody that can shoot from the arc," Wily said.

Aja Tapusoa added eight points and a game-high 12 rebounds and Tati Kamae tallied seven points, six steals, two points and an assist in the win.

The Red Raiders out-rebounded the Falcons, 34 to 22.

Kalani was held to 3 of 14 (21.4 percent) from beyond the arc and 21 of 45 (46.7 percent) from the field.

"Defensively we were gonna do what we do every single game, which is play an aggressive man-to-man defense. Making sure that our help is there, making sure we contest every single shot. Even if they make it, we want to make sure every shot they take is contested and then grabbing rebounds is a huge thing for us as well, but we knew that we didn't want to play them zone," Wily recalled.

Wily was cautious to keep her players from putting too much of their focus defensively on the Falcons' prolific trio of scorers in Kamakawiwoole, Akiona and Kalena Halunajan.

"We didn't want to focus on the main players of Kalani because there's five players that are gonna be on the active court and Kalani was an amazing team with a great group of coaches, so we had a lot of respect for them and we understood that we would have to bring our best efforts in everything we do against them. I feel like if we didn't give it our best, that's not being respectful to the game or our opponent," Wily noted.

Overconfidence amongst her players was never a problem, Wily added. Quite the contrary, actually.

"The mindset was always that we're the underdogs. We had a goal and that's to get the win and it's about giving everything that you've got. We believe in a culture that we tried to build as a coaching staff, as a program and the girls bought in, they understood. A lot of players feel like if they're not playing or starting they're not contributing, but with every team we explain to them that every single player matters — whether you're on the bench or on the active floor — nobody should be negative or pouting because you're not going in," Wily said.

She went on, "Your just job to motivate your teammates is just as important as being on the floor. Every girl had to understand that it doesn't matter who's scoring the points, it's about what we're doing collectively: rebounding, defense, cheering from the bench. And when your time is called step up, fill in and give your best."

To remind her team about the importance of maintaining the right mindset throughout the season, Wily and her coaching staff drew reference to the king of the jungle.

"We talked about lions, how they're big and ferocious and that a family of lions are called a pride, so we were their pride — the basketball pride, the basketball family — and we talked about how every family has to eat and lions have to hunt for their food to eat," Wily said. "Then some of them knew this, but with a pride of lions, it's the female lions, the lioness, that does the hunting for the pride. I told them that you guys are the lioness and it's up to you guys if the pride eats, so every game was a hunt for us and my sister explained to them that the pride has been starving for 14 years and it's up to you guys to go out there and feed the pride."

The OIA championship — then the eighth in program history — came in Wily's third year as coach of her alma mater. The title may have seemed unlikely just a few months prior, given the fact that Kahuku's top returning player, Sisilia Kaufusi left school and moved to the mainland just prior to the start of the season.

"Them starting out with that adversity of losing a teammate, I think that kind of helped them to understand why us as coaches always tell them that it's about every single girl on this team contributing, but I think it wasn't until that situation happened that they realized that the coaches really do believe in every one of them," Wily said. "They set goals — team and individual goals — and even though one person had to leave, it was next man up and they knew that our goals didn't change, so I think that moment they bought into everything."

The Red Raiders have improved in each of Wily's four total seasons in charge so far.

"Ever since we started coaching we talked to every single team about raising the bar, so that first group of girls — Brittni Blake, Savanna Christensen, Talei Niu them, that very first group — their job was to raise the bar. All those seniors when we came in, they had to raise the bar for the next group of girls and they ended up doing that," Wily said.

In her first year there (2016-'17 season), the team went 7-3 in the OIA East regular season, finished fifth in the league tournament and was ousted in the first round of the state tournament.

"We went to our first state tournament game, which was against Kamehameha and yeah, it wasn't a good turnout, but that was the first bar that was raised," Wily recalled of the 18-point loss to the Warriors.

The next season they went 8-2, placed third in the OIA tournament and again, lost in the first round of states.

"The next group, Leiah and those freshmen and sophomores — I think (Maryknoll-transfer) Kaufusi came in then, too — their job was to raise the bar even higher than the last group," Wily said.

Kaufusi was selected All-OIA East Player of the Year and All-Hawaii Second Team as a junior that season. Then-freshman Naeata and junior Meleana Tonga were named second- and third-team All-OIA East all-stars, respectively.

The 2018-'19 season, however, saw Kahuku go 11-0 in the East, win the OIA title — with its' breakthrough victory over the Falcons — and secure a first-round bye at the state tournament.

"It might not have been the prettiest the first two seasons, but we just asked them to raise the bar those first two seasons, so that third year we expected that outcome as coaches that we had, because that was the only way we could raise the bar, in our minds, for the next group," Wily said.

But two weeks after winning the OIA title, Kahuku lost in the quarterfinals at states to Konawaena and went on to finish sixth.

However, the bittersweet end to the year gave the returning group all the motivation it needed for the Red Raiders to successfully defend its OIA championship in the 2019-2020 season.

"That (Konawaena) game did play a role in next year, again about raising the bar for the next year. We understood that it's harder to defend the championship and they definitely worked for it and their payout was to be able to get the back-to-back OIA titles," said Wily, whose team reached the semifinals of the state tournament for the first time during her tenure as coach with a quarterfinal-win over Maryknoll last February.

Wily added in closing, "That was the way that they raised the bar from last season."



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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