McKinley's Macjun Otarra puts up a shot attempt between two Kapolei defenders. Steve Erler | Special to SL

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120614_McKinley-13a.jpg - Steve Erler | Special to SL

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Four McKinley players scored in double figures as the Tigers beat Kapolei, 60-53 on the final day of the Hawaii Self Storage Black and Gold Classic at McKinley's Student Council Gymnasium on Saturday afternoon.

Macjun Otarra led the way with a game-high 20 points, Dan Villejo added 12, Jonah Howard had 11 and Nelson Pita chipped in 10 and grabbed more than seven rebounds for the Tigers.

"We're very fortunate and we want to get balanced so teams can't concentrate on one guy. One night we're bound to have one or two be off. We do rely on Dan and I think Jonah will come through for us. Nelson has been a big help in the paint, he poses problems and has good footwork and is more physical on the boards and we hope we can have him throughout the season," said McKinley coach Duane Omori.

In the first quarter, Villejo and Howard scored 7 points each to lead the Tigers offensively. McKinley went up by 10 after a layup by Howard to make it, 21-11.

Kapolei outscored McKinley, 11-9 and cut the deficit to 6 after a jumper from Tyquwan Womack to make it, 21-15. Abdel-Kader Ziane drained a deep 3 to make it, 28-22 going into halftime.

In the third, Kapolei made a run and cut it to 1, 30-29 after Womack hit a runner in the paint. Otarra had back-to-back fast break layups to put the Tigers up, 36-29. However the Hurricanes answered with a five-point swing as Ziane hit a 3 from the left corner and Josh Wallwork had a putback forcing McKinley to call a timeout.

"This team is brand new and we're young. Some of them never played with each other and we're trying to build chemistry right now. Today they fought a bit and we're getting better," said Kapolei coach Gary Ellison.

With a guard-heavy team, the Tigers like to space the floor and get out in transition with Villejo, Otarra and their other guards attacking the rim.

"That's something we have to work on—transition defense, that's what we really need to work on. That's what hurt us this weekend and we gave up a lot of points. We're probably going to spend a couple weeks to work on," said Ellison.

"We worked hard on our conditioning and I told the boys that's first offense right now. We want to push the ball when the defense isn't set up and hopefully we can get some easy buckets. We understand it's going to be a fast game and there are going to be turnovers, but we want to minimize them as much as possible," said Omori.

"We worked on this, this summer and ran a lot because we're small so we need to get faster and quicker," added Otarra.

McKinley kept Kapolei at bay in the fourth and pushed the lead back up to double digits, 60-48 after Huthifah Abdel-Jawad found Otarra for a nice transition layup. Otarra scored 9 of his 20 points in the quarter off of layups and pull-up jumpers.

"We try to get in transition and we ran up and down the court. I think the easiest points we could get were the fast break points," said Otarra.

"He's one of our steady players and knows what we expect from him. I don't think he gets tired, I think his conditioning helps him at the end of the game," said Omori, on Otarra.

Ziane scored a team-high 16 points and sank four 3's, he had two back-to-back threes in the third quarter for Kapolei. Jeremiah Sanchez had eight points and Dillon Pakele added six for the Hurricanes and they have shown they can hit mid-range jumpers.

"That's what we were working on a right now. We want to see what we can do this guy and that guy and we're building roles. Abdel spent all last season and offseason developing a shot and it's starting to come to him. Koa (Alvarado) is a penetrator and workhorse and we're trying to develop Ty (Womack). Overall we're not doing bad, we got what we expected this weekend with a young basketball team," said Ellison.

Kapolei is participating in the Walter Wong Classic at Saint Louis later this month. McKinley will participate in the Pete Smith Classic and also the Walter Wong Classic as well.

"We don't have too many preseason games this year, it's good because we got more practice time to develop the guys. Our goal is to be ready for Jan. 3 and to get better every single preseason game. We progressed this week from Thursday to now," said Ellison.

"One of the good things of the preseason I tell the kids is that it's hard to simulate it in practice. We got to get mentally tougher and when we get into these situations, last year we lost a couple games where we failed to execute at the end of the game, so we're focusing on finishing games," said Omori.