Rose Shimaoka and the undefeated Cougars will travel to Kailua to face the Surfriders in a key OIA East tilt. ScoringLive photo illustration

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Two of the top contenders in the Eastern Division of the Oahu Interscholastic Association girls basketball race are set to face off this weekend on the Windward side.

Kaiser will bring an unblemished 6-0 league record against a 5-1 Kailua team in a pivotal divisional bout at the Surfriders' home gym Saturday evening.

The Cougars are coming off a 53-39 win over Moanalua Thursday night and have won each of their regular-season games by no less than 11 points.

"I haven't seen too much of them this season, but over the years we've come to always expect them to have a good squad," Kailua coach Mandy Llamedo said of Kaiser. "They're aggressive defensively, they've got tough shooters and penetrators, so we definitely have to play our best against them if we want to be successful, which I think we can be."

Junior guard Rose Shimaoka is averaging a team-best 14.4 points per game. She has scored in double figures in all but three of the Cougars' 18 games this season. In her last three games, Shimaoka scored 28 points against Kalani, 20 versus Kahuku and 26 against Moanalua.

"We've progressed very well from having to basically just drop the ball and move everyone all over," Kaiser coach Simon Bitanga said of his squad. "We have a lot of new girls, so we broke it down very slow for a lot of the girls. We wanted to get eight deep in our rotation. Before we didn't have that, we had four or five girls we could rely on, but now I think we can go eight deep with 11 girls on the team."

Bitanga also called senior guard Natasha Horn and junior guard Brandi Baker "pleasant surprises" so far.

"They've been doing the little stuff to help us win," Bitanga said. "They do some scoring as well, but the meat of their play is the defensive end. Those are some of the girls we had to work on and they're turning around. I think part of our success has been tied to them."

Meanwhile the Surfriders opened the regular season with five straight victories, but suffered a 57-54 road loss at Farrington Thursday night.

"I think we're getting better with every game. I think it's nice to be at a place where we're still winning and we still have a lot of stuff to fix," Llamedo said. "The girls have been working hard. Every challenge I've given them, they've risen to that challenge. At this point, we're just trying to keep them centered and grounded and in the team and together, which has been a huge part of our success this year."

Kailua's offense is fueled by the trio of senior forward Patria Vaimaona (20 points per game), junior forward Delcie Williams (14.2 ppg) and junior guard Tara Takata (7.6 ppg).

"They're good," Bitanga said of the trio. "They're big and strong, they're talented and they get minutes, so that's going to be a battle. I think their inside game versus our defense is going to be a battle."

Vaimaona scored a season-high 28 points in a win over McKinley a few weeks back, while Williams netted a season-high 23 points against Moanalua last week.

"I think everybody will look at our posts first, but I also think we've had a handful of our guards step up and I think we've been a lot more well-balanced as far as guard and post play," Llamedo said. "A lot of times people go in games against us just focused on (Vaimaona and Williams) and because of that other people are able to step up."

Bitanga knows first-hand just how dangerous Williams can be. As a sophomore, Williams scored 44 points in an overtime win over the Cougars last year.

Llamedo said containing Kaiser's speed could pose a problem come Saturday.

"We've worked on a lot this year trying to get them to play with an uptempo team and we've upped our expectations as far as the speed and the running — to the point sometimes where all we've done (in practice) is run and they don't touch the ball at all," Llamedo said. "I think it's helped us, but I think Kaiser is going to be a good test for us to see where we're at in our running game."

Tip off between the Cougars and Surfriders is expected around 7 p.m.