Moanalua's Lachae McColor scored a game-high 21 points against Farrington. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Kahuku's Adora Anae battles Moanalua's Lachae McColor for a rebound. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Kahuku's Kela Schwenke puts up a shot attempt against Moanalua. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Kahuku's Fia Tailele-Latu drives down the lane for a layup attempt against Moanalua. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Wed, Dec 12, 2012 @ Moanalua

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Kahuku

63

Moanalua

48

Final	1	2	3	4
Kahuku (8-6, 8-8)	10	22	17	14	63
Moanalua (8-6, 8-9)	11	9	12	16	48

L. McColor 21 pts  1 3pm  4/9 FTs

F. Tailele-Latu 19 pts  1 3pm  4/9 FTs

SALT LAKE - Moanalua hung tough with Kahuku for one quarter Wednesday night, but it was all Red Raiders after that.

Fia Tailele-Latu scored 19 points and Kela Schwenke added 11 to lead visiting Kahuku in a 63-48 win over Moanalua in an Oahu Interscholastic Association Red East Conference girls basketball game. The Red Raiders used a distinct height advantage to control the rebounding battle and got numerous easy layups on quick transition baskets to improve to 3-0 in the regular season.

Na Menehune, who were led by LaChae McColor's game-high 21 points, fell to 3-1 in league play.

"I knew the first week of the season would be real important. If we could come out 3-0 from this first week, we'd be in good shape, but still now we can't falter, now we have to keep it up," said Kahuku coach Scott DeSilva, whose team beat Farrington and Kaimuki earlier in the week. "We have some of the (White Conference) schools coming up and they're battling just like we are, so we'll have to bring our 'A' game no matter what."

Moanalua held an 11-10 lead after the first quarter, but Kahuku used a 19-4 run - including eight points by Tailele-Latu - to pull ahead, 27-15, with three minutes and two seconds left in the second.

"We need to improve on our discipline defensively, we had too many breakdowns tonight - especially in the second quarter," Na Menehune interim coach Dane Canida said. "In the second half, we weren't boxing out, our rebounding broke down, and we couldn't contain (Tailele-Latu) on the dribble-drive and that's the result."

Kahuku outscored Moanalua, 22-9, in the second quarter and held a 32-20 lead at halftime.

"In the second quarter, (McColor) was out of the game, so that's when I wanted to just pound it down low and if we foul, we foul," DeSilva said.

McColor and Tailele-Latu each had 11 points in the first half.

"I think what happened is when we first came out in that first quarter, I wanted that energy, but we didn't have that energy and I told them in the second quarter that if we play with energy - all we did was play better defense and we were able to get better opportunities - and I was telling the girls from the beginning of the game that I wanted to know if we could push the ball on them and when we did push the ball, we made easy baskets," Silva said.

The Red Raiders opened the third quarter with a 8-0 run that was capped by a Tailele-Latu layup and extended their lead to 49-32 by the start of the fourth.

A three-point play by Schwenke with 4:46 remaining gave Kahuku its largest lead at 56-35 and Moanalua could only get as close as 15 points the rest of the way.

"Defensively, we broke down," Canida said. "(Tailele-Latu) carved up our defense, we couldn't close the gaps like we did in the first quarter and she got to the rim, she dished and she had a great game."

McColor, a junior forward, scored 10 points after halftime, but was mostly held in check by the Red Raiders' defense.

"I put someone on (McColor) and kind of made a box and kind of made everybody else try to beat us," DeSilva said. "Until they proved that they could beat us, I was going to stay in that box-and-one."

Kahuku was 10 of 20 from the free-throw line while Moanalua made 16 of its 27 free throws.

The road only gets tougher for Canida's squad, whose team will play four games on consecutive days.

"This was a tough one tonight because we have the Iolani Classic coming up as well, so I'm really concerned about the injury part during this four-game stretch and coming out alive and tonight, no injuries, but we have to fix a lot of stuff and it's a quick turnaround - we have Iolani (Thursday) - so we'll see what we can do," Canida said.

Moanalua returns to OIA East action against McKinley next Wednesday, while Kahuku hosts Anuenue Saturday.