Noah Ah Yat and the Surfriders will host the Knights in a battle of 2-4 OIA Eastern Division teams Saturday night. Brien Ing | SL

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Windward district rivals Castle and Kailua will each be seeking a much-needed win when they face off against each other at Harry Murai Gymnasium Saturday night.

Both teams currently sit at 2-4 in league play with five games remaining in the Oahu Interscholastic Association Eastern Division regular season.

The Knights, who are classified as a Division II team, dropped their first two games of league play before splitting their next four contests. Castle picked up wins over D2 teams Anuenue (0-6) and Roosevelt (2-4), but lost to D2 East leading Kaimuki (4-2) and McKinley (5-1). A win against the Surfriders will inch the Knights one step closer to locking up one of the East's three spots in the six-team D2 playoffs.

"Our morale is better," said first-year Castle coach Neil Bowers. "After our loss to Kaimuki it was really down because that was a D2 matchup we were really looking forward to and our defense didn't really show up. Our win over Roosevelt brought the morale back up and after last night (60-44 loss to McKinley) our morale is still up. We're really looking forward to this matchup against Kailua."

Kailua on the other hand is on the bottom looking up in the OIA East Division I standings with six of the seven total D1 teams getting bids into the 12-team OIA D1 playoffs. The Surfriders squeezed out a 55-54 win over Roosevelt in their league-opener, but dropped four straight before getting back into the win column against Kalani (0-6) Thursday night.

"We're just trying to finish games and get back on the winning end," said Kailua coach Wally Marciel. "Last night against Kalani hopefully started a move towards ending the season strong. We're trying to get back wins so we can get into the playoffs. We're working hard on that."

While their record may not indicate how well they have performed, three of the four Surfriders' losses have been decided by a single possession. A lot of Kailua's inability to finish games stem from not having a full roster. In losses to Kaiser (6-0) and Moanalua (3-3), the Surfriders had three players (Martin Tigilau, Hano Kohatsu and Nilsson Gaisoa) playing in the Junior Prep Sports Paradise Football Classic.

Kailua finally got its full roster in action against the Falcons and was able to tinker its lineup to success. The Surfriders moved junior post Christian Mejia to the top of their 1-2-2 zone defense while starting two other bigs — Noah Auld and Kohatsu — and had point guard Noah Ah Yat and swingman Zach Marrotte in the backcourt.

"Yesterday was the first time we had our whole team either not injured or playing in a football game," said Marciel. "We really had our whole team playing and we played a lot better."

Saturday's contest will also be between a former player and coach. Marciel was Bowers' junior varsity coach at Kalaheo and a varsity assistant under the late Pete Smith before Bowers graduated in 2004. It will be the first time that Bowers has coached against Marciel.

"I'm getting real old when one of my players get to coach against me," said Marciel. "He had a great career at Kalaheo and I'm very proud of him digging into the next steps of his life and being a coach. You always feel good as a coach when one of your players looks at wanting to be a coach somewhere to give back to the players."

Another storyline to follow is the different style of play that each team will use. Kailua has a size advantage down low and will look to go inside out while Castle is more guard-heavy.

"We're a very small team," said Bowers. "We don't have anybody over 6-feet tall. Pretty much every team that knows about us or has seen us in the preseason or regular season thinks they can pound it inside on us. McKinley was successful with that last night with (junior center Mark Burke), but he's probably the first big that dominated us. We've gone up against bigs from Saint Francis and Kamehameha-Hawaii and they'll get their buckets here and there, but our undersized post players are a lot tougher than teams think until they matchup with us. Kailua will probably pound it in and go inside. We have some big coaches so we can simulate that in practice."

While his team may have the size advantage, Marciel is well aware of the defensive problems that a perimeter-oriented team can cause by spreading the floor.

"All guard teams give me headaches because we have a hard time matching up them," said Marciel. "I think the league shoots the ball from the perimeter way better this year than in years past. To me it seems like everyone is having their best games, shooting percentage wise, against us."

Tip-off between the Knights and the Surfriders is slated for 7 p.m.

ScoringLive reporter Kalani Takase contributed to this report.