Moanalua's Mercedes Smith and Na Menehune takes on HBA's Alexis Dang and the Eagles Saturday at Hanalani. Michael Lasquero | SL

Purchase image 1 of 1

After coming up one win short of qualifying for the Division I girls basketball state tournament last season, Moanalua second-year coach Kirk Ronolo is looking for a growth spurt from his team this year.

Na Menehune went 12-10 overall in the 2018-'19 season, including a 9-5 league mark and fourth-place finish in the Eastern Division of the Oahu Interscholastic Association. After a win over Waianae in the first round of the 12-team league tournament, they dropped their next two games against Mililani and Leilehua to bring their season to a close.

"This is my second year here, but I told my staff that we're going to consider this our first year because last year was a transition year and we had some bumps in the road, but I think we came on strong this year with a new philosophy and new staff," said Ronolo, a 1987 graduate of Kailua.

Ronolo's two oldest daughters, Jamie-Leigh ('07 graduate) and Brittni ('08), starred in basketball and softball at Moanalua before both going on to collegiate hoops careers at Holy Names.

Brittni is now the junior varsity coach at her alma mater. Another new addition to the program is former University of Hawaii forward Lahni Salanoa.

Kirk Ronolo coached Jamie-Leigh and Brittni's travel team when the family lived in California. After moving back to Hawaii, he's had coaching stints at Kapolei, Nanakuli, Kamehameha and Christian Academy.

"I was in the military, in the Navy, and so we lived in the area and my girls came to school here (at Moanalua) and I just fell in love with the school while they were here," Ronolo said.

"I had two dream jobs: Kailua, my alma mater, and then Moanalua. I like the family atmosphere here. I think it's a really good position and a really good school and three years ago when my youngest daughter (Shaylee-Ann) was about to come to Moanalua the JV coach position opened up and she said I should put in for the job," he said. "I took a few days, thought about it and put my name in the hat and (former Moanalua varsity) coach Tani (Almont-Done) chose me to be her JV coach. I coached the JV girls for two years then last year when coach Tani resigned she asked if I would be interested in the position."

In Ronolo's lone season as coach at Christian Academy in 2010, the Patriots came up one win short of qualifying for the D2 state tournament.

"We lost by four points to Hanalani," Ronolo recalled. "We had a scrappy team."

Ronolo hopes to see a lot of the same scrappiness out of his Moanalua team when it opens its season this weekend at the Lady Royals Challenge. The 10-team tournament, hosted by Hanalani, will take place at the Mililani campus Saturday and Monday, with games starting at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. both days.

"This is going to be a learning experience coming out here after two days of practice to put in our offense and defense," said Ronolo, who made his final cuts to the roster just Wednesday night.

As if the short turnaround time wasn't tough enough, Na Menehune will have the task of opening up the preseason against reigning D2 state champion Hawaii Baptist Saturday.

"HBA is always a great team, a great shooting team and I have a lot of respect for that program, so we'll have to work hard, learn from our mistakes, try to keep our turnovers to a minimum and do the best we can," Ronolo said.

While Ronolo isn't concerned with the final score Saturday, he knows exactly what he does want to see out of his players.

"I'm a defensive-minded coach and so I focus a lot of my attention on defense. Play good defense and limit our turnovers," Ronolo said. "Playing good defense leads to more possessions, more possessions leads to more shots, more shots lead to more points — that's my philosophy — so no matter what the outcome of Saturday's game, no matter what the scoreboard says, I want to see us work really hard on defense. If we can play smart and play hard on defense, that's what I'm looking for."

Among those Ronolo will count upon this season are returnees Mercedes Smith, Breanne Louis-Merry, Sierra Kauweloa and Manu Itula, along with his daughter, Shaylee-Ann, and newcomer Zia Rapada.

"We're expecting big things out of Mercedes," Ronolo said. "Manu couldn't play last year because of a health concern but she got cleared and will play as much as she can this year until the doctors say she can't."

"We had a scrimmage (Wednesday) and I don't want to say it to toot my own daughter's horn, but she was one unexpected bright spot I thought. She really opened up my eyes and my whole coaching staff's eyes with her movement, getting to the basket and finishing strong, so hopefully she can be a facilitator and a scorer for us at the same time," he added.

But it's Rapada, a military dependent whose family recently relocated from Temecula, California, that could be the biggest difference-maker of them all for Na Menehune this season.

"She's a point guard and a small, tiny little girl, but she's really quick," Ronolo said of Rapada, who last played at Chaparral High. "She's a good ball handler, she's can shoot the ball from range behind the 3-point arc, she can find the open man after driving, penetrating and dishing and she's probably our most knowledgeable player. She plays bigger than what she is, that's for sure, and she's a no-fear type of player; going up against bigger girls doesn't bother her."

As far as the Eagles, there is no question that Alexis Dang is who makes them go. She earned Interscholastic League of Honolulu Player of the Year honors and was also selected as All-Hawaii Player of the Year as a junior point guard last season. This year, however, Dang is slotted in as the team's starting shooting guard.

"She's going to be our go-to person once again," HBA coach Robin Yamaguchi said. "But at the same time, we've got to be able to free her up because a lot of people know about her and they're going to key on her, so we've got to be able to free her up to get her open looks more often."

Another key component for the team this season will be senior forward Sasha Phillip, a second team All-ILH and All-Hawaii pick a year ago, as well as a pair of sophomores in Hayley Taka and Emi Wada.

"I think Emi should be able to fit into a starting role pretty easily and we also have (Cydni) Yoshida — she'll be a part of the rotation — and we have three freshmen coming in, so we've got to jell together, but I think we should be OK. We should be formidable for everybody," said Yamaguchi, who was tabbed as All-Hawaii Coach of the Year while serving in an interim role last season.

The Eagles lost two starters off of last year's ILH and state championship-winning team that went 12-1 in league play and 25-6 overall.

"At this point we're just trying to work on ourselves. We don't know anything about Moanalua, we just think they're going to be much bigger than us, much faster than us, so we've just got to be ready for a physical game. I just want to see if we can mesh together because we lost the seniors and see if Lexi and Sasha and Hayley can bring us together," Yamaguchi said.

Like Ronolo, Yamaguchi is also putting an emphasis on defense this preseason.

"We want to be able to play better defense and then be able to rebound against everybody and then I think our offense will come off of our defense," Yamaguchi said.

Tip-off between Moanalua and HBA Saturday is scheduled for 1 p.m.