Kahuku's Denhym Brooke heads to the basket for a layup against Mid-Pacific. Sylvia Lee | SL

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Sat, Dec 27, 2014 @ Mid-Pacific

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Kahuku

82

Mid-Pacific

59

Final	1	2	3	4
Kahuku (12-2, 18-6)	24	21	22	15	82
Mid-Pacific (2-9, 9-17)	15	15	15	14	59

D. Florenco 16 pts  6/7 FTs

D. Brooke 25 pts  1 3pm  6/6 FTs

MANOA - With four players out, perhaps for the season, due to injuries, Kahuku welcomed three players from New Zealand with open arms.

Denhym Brooke scored a game-high 25 points and Hyrum Harris pulled down 12 rebounds to help the Red Raiders overwhelm Mid-Pacific Insitute, 82-59, Saturday at MPI to advance to Monday's Punahou Invitational semifinals.

Samuta Avea followed with 22 points, including four 3-pointers and Hyrum Harris, another New Zealander, added 12 points. Tama Green, the third from New Zealand, did not score, but had four rebounds for the Red Raiders.

Daniel Florenco paced the Owls with 16 points, followed by Drew Kargol's 14, including four 3-pointers.

The 6-foot-6 Harris, 6-7 Brooke and 6-2 Green - all seniors - helped make up for losses of 6-3 Hirkley Latu, 6-3 Tuli Wily-Matagi, 6-2 Soli Afalava and 5-11 Kesi Ah Hoy. All are nursing injuries carried over from football. Some of the injuries were aggravated earlier in the basketball preseason.

"They're very good, very talented," Kahuku coach Alan Akina said. "Good size, too. We lost our returning scorer (Latu). He tore his labrum. He's having surgery Monday. He tried to block a shot and tore his labrum. He was our big guy inside. Soli Afalava, broken foot. Tuli, his shoulder. And Kesi Ah Hoy, he's out. So our four bigs, all gone. All football injuries. But we got a couple big guys, so that's going to help us out a lot."

Actually, Harris and Green may sound familiar. They played at Maryknoll two seasons ago before returning to New Zealand for their junior seasons, Harris confirmed.

Even sans the New Zealanders, Avea, who is 6-5, gave the Red Raiders presence, knocking down four 3-pointer and two dunks. He also had four steals and five rebounds and a blocked shot.

"We have a lot of athletes," Akina said. "Athletic football Polynesian kids that can run, jump. They're strong and they're aggressive so that allows them to either press or play a nice comfortable zone and still be very big."

The game was tied at 15 with 2:35 in the first quarter after Ben Swanson converted a three-point play. But Kahuku ended the quarter with a 9-0 run to make it 24-15. Then the Red Raiders opened their lead by starting the second quarter with successive 3-pointers from Brooke and Avea.

The Owls went scoreless for 6:10 stretch before breaking the spell on a Lamar Carter free throw.

Mid-Pacific had a modest 11-0 run to pull to 71-55 with 4:18 left in the game. It would be the closest the Owls would get to within the Red Raiders the rest of the way.

Harris said he moved back to Hawaii, Laie in particular, to learn more about his Mormon religion. He said the basketball at Kahuku is better than at his home country.

"There's a lot of talent here," he said. "We're still learning. We learn every game."

Harris added basketball is a lot more aggressive in New Zealand.

"It's more physical here," he said.