Leilehua's Liam Fitzgerald hit four 3-pointers and scored a season-high 17 points as the Mules cruised past the Hurricanes. Brien Ing | SL

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Sat, Jan 2, 2016 @ Kapolei

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Leilehua

52

Kapolei

27

Final	1	2	3	4
Leilehua (24-11, 17-9)	13	11	14	14	52
Kapolei (20-9, 12-8)	6	7	7	7	27

SEASON LEADERS

Zoar Nedd 9.4 ppg  1 3pm  60.6 FT%

Joseph Gouty 15.1 ppg  31 3pm  72.8 FT%

KAPOLEI — So much for the sophomore slump.

Liam Fitzgerald made four 3-pointers and scored a season-high 17 points to lead Leilehua to a 52-27 win over host Kapolei in the regular-season openers for both teams Saturday night.

The Mules, who are ranked ninth in the Hawaiian Electric/ScoringLive Boys Basketball Power Rankings, also got nine points from Nicholas Duran and six apiece from posts Anterrio Gainwell, Jr. and Koa Kauhi to improve to 6-5 overall and 1-0 in the Western Division of the Oahu Interscholastic Association.

No player scored in double figures for the Hurricanes (5-5, 0-1), who had won five of their last six games to close out the preseason.

Leilehua guard Joseph Gouty, who won OIA West player of the year honors as a junior last season, was held scoreless in the first half and finished with just four points. Fitzgerald, a 6-foot-5 sophomore, helped fill Gouty's scoring void. He had 11 points in the first half alone and made one 3-pointer in each quarter.

"He works on it," Mules' coach Russ Fitzgerald said of his son. "He's works on his shooting a lot — Saturdays, Sundays — but also those shots are a reflection of our team's sharing. (Gainwell, Jr.) kicking the extra pass to him, (Gouty) kicking the extra pass, (Kauhi) kicking the extra pass. I mean, he's the end recipient of it, but it's really all those other things that happened that led to it."

Kapolei coach Gary Ellison was pleased with his team's defensive effort against Gouty, but lamented the night that Fitzgerald posted.

"He killed us. We let him hang out on that 3-point line and he just killed us," Ellison said. "For the most part the boys did their part against Gouty, it was just Liam, we just let him go and that killed us and we tried to do the triangle-and-two against them and that worked but it was well coached against; It was like they were expecting it."

It was a season-low in points for Gouty, but Fitzgerald noted that he made numerous other contributions that didn't get as much recognition.

"That means we can be a really good team when we share that ball, but I told Joe from the very beginning that his importance to our team is never about how many points he scored," Fitzgerald said. "Tonight his steadiness, his distribution — I don't know how many points he had, but I know he had at least six, seven assists that were huge for us — so I thought he played a heck of a game, regardless of points."

Leilehua dominated the rebounding battle, especially on the offensive end where it recorded 12 boards, which led to 13 second-chance points.

"They killed us on the boards," Ellison said. "That's a lot of our youth just showing, our young guys not understand what we're trying to do and that's why I said we're still learning, but tonight it showed us exactly where we're at, so the boys are down a little bit but they're going to come back."

It was just the second ranked opponent the Hurricanes faced this year. They dropped a nail-biter against No. 7 Maryknoll, 31-29, on Dec. 17.

"Besides Maryknoll, that was probably the best team we've played," Ellison said of the Mules. "We didn't see a team like that during the preseason, so that was good for us to see a team like that — a well-coached team with a lot of athletes and a lot of shooters."

Fitzgerald credited Kauhi, Duran and Gainwell, Jr. — who came off the bench — with negating Kapolei's bigs.

"Koa Kauhi, there's a reason he was the all-(OIA West) center as a junior," Fitgerald said. "He plays like a man. AJ Gainwell, he plays like a man. Nick Duran gave us good minutes, so our frontline held up well and I was really happy with the team effort. Our goal was to win each quarter and we did that."

Ian Manuel led the Hurricanes with nine points — all coming on 3-pointers — and Jashon Carter added seven.

The Mules held a 24-13 lead at halftime. They never trailed in the game and led by as many as 30 midway through the fourth quarter.

Both team's next game is Tuesday. Kapolei will visit Radford, while Leilehua will host Waipahu.