Lt. Col. Mike Wingfield (right) stepped in as interim coach in late November while Michael Johnson (left) was later named new Moanalua coach at the start of the new year. CJ Caraang | SL

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DiAeris McRaven goes up for a shot in the paint against Kahuku. McRaven missed the regular-season game against Kahuku due to a volleyball trip but was solid all-around with 15 points and eight rebounds in the win in the OIA D1 title game. CJ Caraang | SL

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The Moanalua boys basketball team overcame its share of adversity to capture its second straight Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I boys basketball championship Wednesday night.

Perhaps no challenge was greater than a coaching change after the preseason had already gotten underway.

After the resignation of Byron Mello — who led Moanalua to its first league title in eight years last season — in late November, the program was left in limbo. A slew of talent — led by Third Team All-Hawaii guard Geremy Robinson — and 13 seniors, but no head man.

Enter Lt. Col. Mike Wingfield, an JROTC instructor at the school, who stepped into the role of interim coach.

Meanwhile, a search for a permanent guy continued. Just before the turn of the calendar year, Michael Johnson was tabbed for that job. The 26-year old Johnson played collegiately at Kansas Wesleyan before starting his coaching career as an assistant at Hawaii Pacific University for two seasons. He also had a stint at Texas A&M International and prior to taking over at Moanalua, was an assistant at a community college in Kansas.

Johnson's very first game as coach of Na Menehune? A road game at Kahuku, one that his team came up short in, 63-60. Since then, however, they have won 12 of their next 13, including Wednesday's 56-48 win over the Red Raiders in the league final.

After the victory, Johnson passed the credit to his players.

"They're a senior-led group and they expected to be here," he said. "It's no surprise to anyone within our program that we're here and that we competed the way we did."

But it didn't come easy. The day-to-day work was a grind, to be sure.

"They've just been an extremely resilient group. We got things going early, started building brick by brick," Johnson said.

Although a new face to the program, Johnson said he wanted his players to embrace the opportunity of defending their OIA crown.

"They knew they wanted to defend their championship. They came in tonight and I told them that it's very rare and very hard to win a championship at any level in any sports, I said, but it's extremely harder and extremely more rare to be back-to-back champions. I said, ‘you guys have the opportunity to make history tonight, let's go out and do that.' "

That they did. Robinson led the way with a team-high 19 points and senior post DiAeris McRaven — who missed the regular-season game against Kahuku due to a volleyball trip — was solid all-around with 15 points and eight rebounds.

"Great game, good job to Kahuku, they're a great program," McRaven said after the win. "Every time we play them they're real good, so kudos to them, too."

DiAeris McRaven goes up for a shot in the paint against Kahuku. McRaven missed the regular-season game against Kahuku due to a volleyball trip but was solid all-around with 15 points and eight rebounds in the win in the OIA D1 title game. CJ Caraang | SL    Purchase image

While Robinson and McRaven provided most of the scoring, Moanalua also benefitted from complementary performances by several others. Tyler Ybay had seven points and two early steals, Nainoa Kauhola drained a pair of second-half 3s and Bryant Abalos chipped in with seven points off of the bench.

"It was a big-time team effort and that's what's gonna take us — you know, obviously OIA champs is a great accomplishment, but there's a lot of seniors on the team and their ultimate goal is eyeing states — and right now for us to be competitive and actually make that (happen), we're going to have to contributions from everybody all across the board, whether it's offense, defense, everybody playing their role to the best of their ability," Johnson said.

Through all of the adversity, Na Menehune have forged a bond that has been reflected with their play on the court.

"They're great guys, they all play a great role, they all know what they want to do and I love them to death. I love playing around these guys, they make sure they do their jobs and they do it real well," Robinson said.

Moanalua (13-2) will take a 10-game win streak into next week's Snapple/HHSAA State Championships. It will have a first-round bye as one of four seeded teams.

Although it was their second OIA title in as many years, McRaven said the team is not taking this one for granted.

"In the beginning of the season we had a lot of ups and downs with the team, switching new coaches, getting used to new systems, but at the end of the day we just kept practicing, kept working as a team and we just had a really strong bond with 13 seniors," McRaven said.

He added, "You know, we grew up together so we were able to find our chemistry, we were able to find a little groove and now at the OIA championship, we were able to put all of our work together and we were able to get the win at the end of the day."

Back-to-back league championships might have seemed like nothing but a far-off pipe dream back in late November. By mid-February, however, the ‘Menes made it a reality.

"This feels great but we're going to celebrate tonight and tomorrow we're going to start working," McRaven said. "We got states up next."