Game of the Week
Eagles complete undefeated regular season with 45-35 win over Owls


Hawaii Baptist's Katelyn Nakagawa scored 12 points in the Eagles' win over Mid-Pacific. CJ Caraang | SL

MANOA — Three players scored in double figures to lead Hawaii Baptist to a 45-35 win over Mid-Pacific at Mills Gymnasium Thursday afternoon.

Ally Wada scored a team-high 13 points, Katelyn Nakagawa 12 and Stephanie Dang 11 for the Eagles, who improved to 14-0 to complete their fourth consecutive undefeated regular season in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu's Division II.

HBA seized command right out of the gates by scoring the game's first 21 points. It held a 13-0 lead after one quarter.

"That was really good," Nakagawa said. "That's like the first time that we've ever had something like that, so it was good to see."

Mid-Pacific, which was celebrating senior night, missed its first 14 attempts from the field and didn't score until the 5:12 mark of the second quarter on a 3-pointer by Harley Simon.

"I know sometimes for us when we have homecoming all that or senior night, sometimes the kids have the adrenaline high, so I'm not sure with Mid-Pac what happened, but we were lucky to get off to a good start," Eagles coach Keith Sugiura said. "We were able to hit some shots early and I think that gave us some confidence, some momentum in the first half."

Nakagawa, a 5-foot-3 sophomore guard, matched her season-high in points and knocked down a pair of 3-pointers during HBA's early run.

"I think Katie was shooting really well so we were trying to look for her and when she's shooting well like that it also opens up our lanes," Wada said.

The Eagles held a 27-9 lead at halftime and a 36-18 advantage after three quarters.

The Owls outscored the visitors in the fourth quarter, 17-9, but couldn't overcome a poor first half.

"That made it incredibly hard," Mid-Pacific coach Sherice Ajifu said. "We put a lot of effort into the second half trying to make a comeback, but hats off to HBA, they obviously did what they needed to do to jump out to that lead. We made a valiant fight in the second half, but every time we thought we could make a run, HBA had an answer. They're a good team."

Ajifu praised the Eagles' defensive effort for holding her team to its lowest scoring output since Jan. 7 — when it lost at HBA, 32-26.

"I think HBA did an incredible job on defense and who they were denying the ball from, shutting down Ciera, but also Brille. Tylee Wong has been knocking down two, three 3's a game for us in the past few games and we weren't able to get off tonight," Ajifu said. "We just couldn't get into our offense and couldn't get something going."

Simon made two 3-pointers and was a perfect 7-for-7 shooting from the free-throw line to lead all scorers with 15 points. She scored all but three of them in the final quarter.

Mid-Pacific saw a six-game winning streak snapped and fell to 11-3.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].