Chanelle Molina scored 19 points in the Wildcats win over Roosevelt. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Thu, Feb 12, 2015 @ McKinley

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Roosevelt

33

Konawaena

54

Final	1	2	3	4
Roosevelt (14-0, 20-4)	7	6	16	4	33
Konawaena (12-0, 28-1)	11	15	15	13	54

• Points
• Rebounds
• Assists

C. Molina 19 pts  5/6 FTs

K. Quinlan 19 pts  3/6 FTs

C. Molina 9 tot  3 off  6 def

K. Quinlan 9 tot  1 off  8 def

C. Molina 6 ast

A. Kiko 6 ast

After a two year absence, the Konawaena Wildcats are going back to the title game after they rolled past Roosevelt, 54-33 in the New City Nissan/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division I Girls Basketball State Championships semifinals at McKinley's Student Council Gymnasium.

"They are a top team, they play all aspects of the game and credit to them and we wish them the best of luck in the championship game," said Roosevelt coach Hinano Higa.

The top-ranked Wildcats will be making their ninth championship appearance as they take on No. 2 Lahainaluna, the second seed in the tournament on Friday night at the Stan Sheriff Center. Konawaena and Lahainaluna are No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in the ScoringLive/OC 16 Power Rankings all season. The Lunas won the state title in 2010 over the Wildcats, 47-45.

"It's going to be great," said Konawaena coach Bobbie Awa. "Lahaina is a great team, they gave the toughest matchup this whole preseason. I'm excited, Todd's a great guy and they have a great program so it will be fun."

"I want to redeem myself and all the hard work, I hope it pays off tomorrow," said Chanelle Molina.

Molina scored a team-high 19 points on 7-of-13 shooting, grabbed nine rebounds and dished out six assists. Mercedes "Ihi" Victor came off the bench and scored 12 points.

"She's such a pass-first player—she's so unselfish," said Awa, on Molina. "I told her to score and she did well. She's always looking for the next pass. She needed to make decisions for herself and look to score because she's hard to defend anywhere on the court."

"It was good to see Ihi being able to run the whole game after an injury. We need her presence in the house—defensive more than offensive," said Awa, on Victor.

"It was about reading the defense and how they played me," said Molina

In the first quarter, Sharice Kawakami hit a pair of free throws tie the game at 6 at the 3:37 mark. However, the Wildcats closed out the quarter on a 5-1 run after Chanelle Molina hit a pair of free throws.

The Wildcats started pulling away after Taylor Bates passed it to Mercedes Victor as she rolled to the basket to make it 19-11 forcing Roosevelt called timeout. The Rough Riders could not hit a field goal in the final 4 minutes 19 seconds. Keala Quinlan and Kawakami combined for 2 of 4 from the free throw line. The Wildcats closed out the quarter on a 7-2 run.

"They were cutting well to the basket, as soon as I was getting double-teamed, they made good cuts and set themselves up for a basket," said Molina, crediting her teammates for getting open shots.

Roosevelt shot 4 of 18 (22.2 percent) from the field in the first half, 12 of 39 (30.8 percent) for the game.

"We had to hustle back on defense," said Molina. "We had to play our game."

"We needed to run too. We knew we could match up and run with them and we talked about that we needed to put pressure. I think the change in our defense made a big difference," said Awa.

The Rough Riders committed 15 turnovers.

"I think that what hurt us, especially in the second half. Forcing things, turnovers created points for them, momentum two points here and there and it slipped today," said Higa.

Keala Quinlan kept her team in the game and scored 11 of her 19 points in the third quarter and grabbed nine rebounds for the game. Her basket cut the deficit to 10, 39-29. However, Chanelle Molina hit a jumper to give the Wildcats a 41-29 lead going into the fourth.

"She's been our most consistent player throughout the playoffs and state tournament," said Higa, on Quinlan. She played about 30 minutes, she had one possession where she was out for two minutes and for that's a lot of running up and down the floor." 

"We changed up into a zone defense and that made a big difference. The girls did a good job and Keala was killing us inside, we couldn't stop her. We made a changes and instead of trapping we went to the switch—simple adjustments the girls did," said Awa.

Konawaena blew it open in the fourth after Celena Molina hit back-to-back baseline jumpers and Roosevelt called a timeout. Kaonohi Quinlan converted a rare 4-point play with 4:09 remaining, but couldn't get any closer as the Wildcats pushed the lead to over 20 points.

The Rough Riders ranked third in the ScoringLive/OC 16 Girls Basketball Power Rankings will play fourth-ranked Maryknoll for third place on Friday at 3 p.m.

"I'm hoping that we're going to come out strong tomorrow. They were disappointed tonight and wanted that ‘W', but I told them it's not done and we have one more game to go and Maryknoll is a tough matchup and great team," said Higa.