Girls Basketball
Konawaena takes down No. 17 Riverdale Baptist, 49-41


  



Fri, Dec 12, 2014 @ Iolani


Final 1 2 3 4  
Konawaena (12-0, 28-1) 11 11131449
Riverdale 15 10 13 341
L. Niang 16 pts  2/3 FTs
C. Molina 20 pts  1 3pm  5/6 FTs
Z. Campbell 8 tot  5 off  3 def
C. Molina 16 tot  5 off  11 def
A. Willey 2 ast
C. Molina 2 ast

Call them the giant killers.

For the second consecutive night, the Konawaena Wildcats took down a mainland powerhouse behind another stellar performance from junior guard Chanelle Molina. Friday night, the victim was Riverdale Baptist (Upper Marlboro, MD) in the semifinal round of the Iolani Classic girls basketball tournament.

Molina, the reigning All-Hawaii Division I Player of the Year, scored 20 points and grabbed 16 rebounds — both game-high marks — to lead Konawaena to a 49-41 win over Riverdale Baptist before a crowd of about 300 at Iolani's lower gym.

The Wildcats, who improved to 12-0 with the win, were vastly outsized by the much taller Crusaders, who have four players listed at 6-1 or taller and are ranked 17th nationally by MaxPreps.

"We knew they were bigger than us right from the start," said Molina, who also had five assists. "We looked over (during warm-ups) and we saw that they're a lot taller than us, so we knew that we had to box out. Every possession the key was to box out, because without that box out, we could convert to transitioning and getting easy layups."

Konawaena utilized a 2-3 zone for most of the night and crashed hard on Riverdale Baptist senior forward Lena Niang, who is committed to play at North Carlina State next year.

"Riverdale is a very, very big team and we knew that coming in, but we also knew that if we spread the court it would give us opportunities to drive to the basket and find the backdoor and I thought we did a great job doing that," Wildcats' coach Bobbie Awa said.

Niang finished with a game-high 16 points for the Crusaders.

Riverdale Baptist held a 15-11 lead after the first quarter and a 25-22 edge at halftime. It took a 38-33 advantage on a Niang layup, but Konawaena pulled to within a point following consecutive baskets by Molina, and took the lead for good on a 3-pointer by Mikayla Tablit from the deep left corner.

The Wildcats spread the floor down the stretch and burned at least two minutes off the clock. They outscored the Crusaders in the final quarter, 14-3.

"We just wanted to spread the court and open up the middle for us and I think we did a good job at that," Awa said. "We knocked down some shots when we needed to, so that was real good. The girls are playing with a lot of confidence right now."

Molina spent most of her time on offense near the high post and found several teammates on backdoor cuts to the basket.

"We just played smarter," Molina said. "If we were up we had to set-up our plays and play smarter, work the transition a lot and get open and look for easy lanes. If they would come up on us, we would kick it out to the shooter. It's just those little plays that really count. It wasn't about outworking them, but outsmarting them."

Konawaena survived a 63-62 win over Miramonte (Orinda, Calif.) in Thursday's quarterfinal round and will now play Saint Mary's (Stockton, Calif.), which beat Iolani 82-44 in the late semifinal Friday, in Saturday's 8 p.m. tournament final.

The Wildcats last appearance in the championship game in 2011, when it beat Brea Olinda (Calif.) by a score of 50-40 behind 24 points by current-Washington State star guard Lia Galdeira.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




Show your support

Every contribution, no matter the size, will help ScoringLive continue its mission to provide the best and most comprehensive coverage of high school sports in the state of Hawaii and beyond.

Please consider making a contribution today.

ADVERTISEMENT


IMAGE GALLERY



MORE STORIES

Castle takes down Kaiser in four sets to keep pace in OIA East

Cody Pili-Rumusod had nine kills and a game-high 35 assists to pace the Knights, winners of four straight...

Radford wins on walk-off wild pitch to turn back Kalaheo

Mataio Tauanuu batted 4-for-4 and scored the game-winning run in back-and-forth game for the Rams.

Punahou continues unbeaten streak, hands Kamehameha second straight loss

Third-ranked Warriors suffered consecutive losses in the regular season for the first time since 2017.

No. 4 Iolani rallies to hand No. 1 Kamehameha first ILH loss

Ethan Akagi and CJ Taira scored the winning runs for the Raiders off a wild pitch to hand the top-ranked...

Punahou pulls away from PAC-5 to notch first ILH win

The Buffanblu ended a five-game skid and broke into the win column to keep the Wolfpack winless in the...

Kalani's Nishigaya headlines All-OIA East selections

Forward/midfielder Kaiulani Nishigaya helped lift Falcons to first-ever league title; Kaiser's Noelani...