Kailua separates from Roosevelt early in blowout win


Kailua's Everett Torres-Kahapea puts up a fadeaway shot after grabbing an offensive rebound in the first quarter. Michael Lasquero | SL

KAILUA — Everett Torres-Kahapea scored 18 points and Kaniala Williams added 10 to lead host Kailua to a convincing 61-40 win over Roosevelt at Harry Murai Gymnasium Wednesday night.

The Surfriders, who bounced back from a nine-point loss to Kalani Saturday, improved to 3-1 to remain in second place in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I East standings.

The Rough Riders, who were held well below their season average of 55 points per game, suffered their first loss of the regular season to fall to 3-1 and are tied with the Falcons for first place in the D2 East standings.

Kailua turned a one-point lead after the first quarter into an 18-point halftime cushion with a 17-1 run to open the second quarter.

Aaron Mejia sandwiched a 15-foot jumper and a 3-pointer from the left wing around a pair of made free throws by Nainoa Peters to make it 18-10 Kailua just 90 seconds into the second quarter.

Lydell Romero converted a three-point play with 3:34 left in the first half to stretch the Surfriders' lead to 28-11.

Roosevelt cut it to 28-15 on Micah Visoria's 6-footer with 2:36 remaining, but Kailua closed out the second quarter with a 5-0 run capped by a long jumper by Torres-Kahapea from just inside the 3-point line.

The Surfriders outscored the Rough Riders in the second quarter, 22-5, and led at halftime, 33-15.

The Surfriders' run coincided with Roosevelt starters Jared Elwin and Lio Ilalio being relegated to the bench after each picked up two fouls in the first quarter.

"We just lost all energy after that," Rough Riders coach Steve Hathaway said. When Jared's not on the floor, we just, we don't have it. I don't know. We haven't played like that all year. That's the worst game, by far, that we've played all year, and I don't know what it was tonight. I'm really at a loss for words."

Elwin, a senior point guard, and Ilalio, a junior forward, sat out the entire second quarter while nursing foul trouble. The latter picked up his third foul just seconds into the third quarter.

"Without Elwin on the floor, that kills us because he's our energy guy, but losing Lio early and there went our size inside, but Kailua is a good team though. I don't want to take anything away from them," Hathaway said.

Roosevelt got within 37-24 midway through the third quarter after a pair of Visoria free throws and a steal and layup by Elwin, but Kailua answered with back-to-back 3-pointers by Mejia and Williams on consecutive trips up the court to make it a 19-point lead.

"Our goal to is get everybody involved and it showed tonight," Surfriders coach Wally Marciel said.

Williams scored eight of his points after halftime. Kailua also got a boost from the return of 6-foot-6 junior forward Isaiah Hopson, who did not play in all but one quarter of his team's first three regular-season games while working his way back from an ankle injury.

"He was probably 90 percent, but he was cleared by the trainer so I wanted to get him some minutes tonight," Marciel said of Hopson, who came off the bench in the second quarter and finished with six points.

Marciel credited Mejia's work on the defensive end to limit the sharpshooting Visoria to just nine points.

"Aaron's goal tonight was to stay out of foul trouble and watch Visoria and he forced him to take some tough shots," Marciel said. "Visoria is a good shooter and a good athlete and the team rolls with him and Elwin, so our goal was to keep them outside, limit them to one shot and I thought our defense did pretty good on doing that tonight."

Kapono Campos and Chris Lee added nine points apiece for Roosevelt.

The Surfriders shot 22 of 31 from the free-throw line, including 8 of 12 from Torres-Kahapea, the state's leading scorer.

The Rough Riders were just 8 of 15 on free throws.

Both teams continue league play with road games Friday. Kailua will visit Castle while Roosevelt will travel to No. 8 Kahuku.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].