OIA Girls Basketball
Defense, Claytor power Kahuku to second straight league crown


  



Wed, Jan 29, 2020 @ Radford


Final 1 2 3 4  
Moanalua (10-4, 13-9) 7 051527
Kahuku (14-0, 18-7) 11 12 13 1147
M. Claytor 18 pts  5 3pm  1/1 FTs
Z. Rapada 8 pts  2 3pm  0/0 FTs

ALIAMANU — No. 5 Kahuku used a suffocating man-to-man defense and a couple of big runs to run away with its second straight league championship Wednesday night.

Maya Claytor drained five 3-pointers and finished with a game-high 18 points to lead the Red Raiders in a 47-27 rout of No. 10 Moanalua in the title game of the Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I girls basketball tournament at Radford's Jim Alegre Gymnasium.

Kahuku improved to 14-0 and will be the OIA's top seed in next week's Snapple/HHSAA State Championships. It will enjoy a first-round bye Monday before opening play in the 12-team tournament in Thursday's quarterfinals.

Na Menehune suffered their second loss of the season at the hands of the Red Raiders to fall to 10-4.

Claytor did most of her scoring in the second quarter, when Kahuku held Moanalua scoreless. The 5-foot-7 junior guard hit three triples and scored 11 of her team's 12 points in the stanza.

"She did awesome," Red Raiders coach Latoya Wily said. "I mean, Maya is definitely a great shooter. She always does her part, along with the other girls, that's one of her strengths for us, is her shooting, but the thing is that she actually improved a lot on other areas, like she grabs boards for us, she plays good defense for us, I couldn't ask for more."

Kahuku opened the game with a 10-0 run, ignited by a four-point play by Claytor. She connected on a 3-ball from the right wing despite being fouled and made the ensuing free throw.

Moanalua found an answer by switching its zone from a 2-3 to a 1-3-1 and it led to a 7-0 run to cut it to a one-possession deficit with 1:43 left in the opening quarter.

However, Kahuku seized control with 26 consecutive points, including a 13-0 run before halftime.

After a couple of Leiah Naeta free throws, Claytor scored 11 straight points in the second quarter. Her 3-pointer from the right corner made it a 15-7 Red Raider lead with 5:41 on the clock. Her next two buckets — a runner in the lane and a couple possessions later, a triple from the left wing — came off of offensive rebounds.

"Rebounding, weak-side rebounding was so big, rebounding is everything," Claytor said. "Moanalua was doing a good job putting pressure and made it tough for us at first and they pushed through the whole game."

Kahuku grabbed 24 offensive boards — all but three of them in the final three quarters — which led to 16 second-chance points.

"Moanalua, they were definitely working us in there so we were lucky to grab some of the extra rebounds and get those second, third opportunities and possessions," Wily said. "Moanalua, they did a great job. I mean, they were definitely bringing it to us. Fortunately we made sure that we kept the lead and we kept moving it up."

Claytor's third trey of the quarter stretched it to a 23-7 lead by the intermission.

It was more of the same after the break. The Red Raiders scored the first 13 points of the second half, including consecutive finishes at the bucket by Naeta. The junior guard drove the lane and got a left-handed layup to fall before going baseline for a reverse lay-in with her right hand to give her team a 28-point lead with 3:02 in the third quarter.

Kahuku took its largest lead of the game at 36-7 on a Trisha Faumuina free throw about a minute later.

Moanalua outscored the Red Raiders in the final quarter, 15-11, but was unable to cut it the lead to fewer than the final margin.

"They just played smart basketball," Na Menehune coach Kirk Ronolo said of Kahuku. "They hit the angles, cut the angles, so they had the — we were worried about the ball and they were making the cuts and we were too slow to rotate defensively."

Wily said the emphasis — as it has been all season — centered on making stops on the defensive end of the floor when Moanalua made its early run.

"Our main focus was, of course, like we always tell the girls, we need to make sure that we're taking care of business on defense first and then offensively, we just wanted to try and move the ball around, move their zone around so that we could get some open gaps, cuts and drives," Wily said.

Wily said her team drew upon its 60-37 regular-season win over Na Menehune on Dec. 10 to fine-tune its defense for Wednesday night's rematch.

"That's what we like to work on, is just making sure that our help-defense, everybody's still in the position that they're supposed to be in, because we watched film from the last time that we played them and I mean, sometimes we were hugging our man, so we kind of had to go over there in practice and they did well, they executed," Wily explained.

Much as they did in the regular season, the Red Raiders overwhelmed their three opponents in the OIA tournament. Their average margin of victory in the postseason is 24.3 points per game.

Prior to Wednesday's championship game, Kahuku's closest competition in the regular season was a 19-point win at Kaiser on Jan. 14.

It wasn't as easy as it looked, Wily insists.

"Oh no, trust me it wasn't, but I agree that defending a championship is a lot harder, because it's about the mentality of the girls that are returning — are they gonna still be hungry? Are they still gonna want to win? Are they still gonna work hard, or are they still gonna think they got it like that?," Wily said.

Claytor said that while the results made have been lopsided, the process has been a grind.

"It's just about teamwork. Every day in practice we push hard, work hard against each other so that in the game it's easier and tonight my teammates had faith in me to hit the 3-ball and that's what I did, but it was a team effort," Clayton said.

That work ethic on and off the court, along with a strong team bond has fueled Kahuku's season, Wily said.

"The girls, us coaches, we see them, they work so hard, they're so committed, they sacrifice a lot, they stay on top of their grades and it's just, we're so proud of them, they staying focused and keeping up with their grades and being good girls, I couldn't ask for more," she said.

Naeata scored seven of her nine points after halftime. Mary Fonoimoana had six points and Tatianna Kamae and Kalamela Liua added four apiece in the win.

Zia Rapada led Moanalua with eight points. Manu Itula and Shaylee-Ann Ronolo each scored five points and Sierra Kauweloa chipped in four in the loss.

Despite the defeat, Kirk Ronolo was proud of his team, which was coming off a 42-37 upset of West top seed and previously-unbeaten Radford in Saturday's semifinals.

"They outcompeted us; they're bigger, stronger, faster," Ronolo said of the Red Raiders. "I told my girls we're going to give it our best and honestly, we weren't supposed to be here, you know, (but) these girls worked hard, they put everything into it. They did everything I asked of them, we got to the championship game, we did our best against a tough Kahuku team, came up short, (but) hey, it's not the end of the world. We're going back to the drawing board (Thursday) in practice, try to grow upon this loss and bring it into the states with the best that we got."

Both teams emptied their benches in the final minutes.

It is Kahuku's ninth overall OIA title and second under Wily.

"We're just grateful to have another one," she said. "Hopefully we continue to keep improving every single season and hopefully our OIA division, everybody can get stronger so we can have a better presence in states."



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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