CJ Caraang | SL

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Thu, Feb 16, 2017 @ McKinley

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Iolani

48

Kahuku

51

F/OT	1	2	3	4	OT
Iolani (11-4, 22-11)	7	2	16	15	8	48
Kahuku (14-0, 26-3)	10	7	15	8	11	51

• Points
• Rebounds
• Assists

J. Villa 16 pts  1 3pm  7/11 FTs

J. Genovia 14 pts  8/10 FTs

S. Avea 9 tot  2 off  7 def

H. Hogland 11 tot  4 off  7 def

J. Villa 3 ast

J. Genovia 3 ast

Kahuku coach Brandyn Akana is a believer in the old adage that in order to be the best, one must beat the best.

And that's just what his Red Raiders did on Feb. 16, 2017, when they dethroned then-defending champion Iolani in the semifinal round of the Division I state tournament with a thrilling 51-48 overtime victory at McKinley's Student Council Gymnasium.

"What I teach our guys from day one is if you want to win a state championship, you have to go through the (Interscholastic League of Honolulu)," said Akana, whose team was seeded first overall in the 12-team state tournament field after capturing its first Oahu Interscholastic Association title in five years the week prior.

The Raiders, led by 6-foot-9 Hugh Hogland, the reigning All-Hawaii Player of the Year, were placed in Kahuku's side of the bracket, while ILH champion Punahou drew the No. 2 seed and consequently was in the opposite bracket.

"And so I knew we were going to meet up with Iolani or Punahou and if we want to win it, we've got to beat those teams," Akana said.

And he was right.

While his Red Raiders enjoyed a bye in the first round, Iolani powered past Moanalua by a score of 59-43. In the quarterfinals at McKinley two days later, the Raiders cruised past fourth-seeded Waiakea, 70-37, in the 5 o'clock game, before Akana's squad took care of business against Kalaheo, 87-45, in the late contest.

That set-up the semifinal showdown between Kahuku and Iolani at 5 p.m. the next day, while Punahou would face third-seeded Lahainaluna in the 7 o'clock game.

"Leading up to it, Iolani was the defending state champion and they had the defending Player of the Year in Hogland, so we knew that was coming and it was a big game because they won it twice in the last three years, so they were the team to beat," Akana recalled.

Akana knew that accounting for Hogland inside would be of utmost importance. The future-University of Portland signee presented a unique challenge defensively.

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"That's why Iolani was so tough because we don't play against big men like that during the year, but they're also disciplined and they have a legit 6-9, 6-10 big man, so going into it we knew that it was going to be a challenge, but I felt confident with our big men," Akana said.

The primary defender assigned to Hogland was 6-foot-8 junior Daniel Fotu, who joined the team just before the start of the season after transferring in from New Zealand.

But Fotu — the younger brother of former University of Hawaii standout Isaac Fotu — got off to a less-than-stellar start to the game with three turnovers and a personal foul being all of the statistics that he had to account for after the opening quarter of play.

The Red Raiders led 10-7 after one quarter. Fotu missed his first shot from the field just 15 seconds into the second stanza and was whistled for his second foul not long after. He ended up watching the rest of the first half from the bench, but Iolani managed just two points in the second quarter and Kahuku took a 17-9 lead at halftime.

"They played how I would have played us: slow," Akana said of the Raiders' methodical pace. "They walked it up on offense and on they in a 2-3 zone on defense. Whereas everywhere else we were pretty strong, I think our weakness for that year was 3-point shooting, so they said ‘to beat us, hey, you gotta hit 3-point shots,' which we could, but that's not what we were. We were an inside-out team."

The tempo of the game was much slower than what the Red Raiders were used to. They went through league play an undefeated 14-0 that season, while averaging just under 72 points per game and an average margin of victory of more than 32 points per contest.

"We're a team that feeds off of turnovers and that's how we want to play, in the open court and fast. If we get steals, that's when we're dangerous, out on fast breaks and start putting on pressure defensively, but Iolani took care of the ball so that didn't allow us to turn our defense into offense," Akana said. "They walked it up so it kind of changed our whole game which we want to play, which is an up-and-down game."

Hogland was limited to just two points on 1-of-5 shooting and four rebounds in the first half, but he did still proved formidable as a rim-protector with four blocks.

Fotu played only eight minutes in the first half. His foul troubles continued after the break. He picked up his third foul just 36 seconds into the half and was once again relegated to the bench for the rest of the quarter.

But Fotu's teammates picked up the slack in his stead. Jessiya Villa's three-point play with 5:13 on the clock in the third gave Kahuku its largest lead at 25-11.

Like Fotu, Villa, a 6-foot senior guard, transferred from afar (West Virginia, in Villa's case) to play for the Red Raiders. Furthermore, the 6-6 Avea returned home to Kahuku for his senior season after playing his junior year at Bingham High in Utah.

"We knew we had a special team, but we didn't know how they would come together," Akana recalled pondering in the preseason. But as the group logged more games together, the chemistry improved with unselfishness being a continuing theme.

"As the season went on you could see them coming together and sacrificing. Where some players could have averaged 20 (points per game), but they didn't and they averaged 12 to 13 instead for the betterment of the team," Akana noted.

That balance was evident by a glance at the first- and second-half box scores of the semifinal against Iolani. Avea carried the Red Raiders offensively in the first half with nine points, while Villa went on to score 11 of his game-high 16 after the intermission.

"That was part of it and that's what makes a good team is you're going to have times where Samuta can get 20 or 18 and then there's times where Jessiya steps up, that's why this team was so good, everybody takes turns. If somebody is having a difficult night then the next guy steps up and that's what makes dangerous teams," Akana said.

But beyond their own version of the ‘big three,' the Red Raiders also benefitted greatly from their two other starters in Kesi Ah-Hoy and Codie Sauvao, a pair of 6-foot seniors.

"Those two guys, I'd like to say were the heart of our defense. Offensively we didn't look to them to do much, but they were good enough to take care of the ball, they could hit outside shots and finish layups, but I think because of their defense we became a pretty good defensive team. We knew we were good offensively, but their defense really helped our team," Akana explained.

Kahuku's lead was 32-25 after three quarters. Fotu was back on the floor to start the fourth quarter, but he committed his fourth foul just 49 seconds into the final eight-minute period and yet again forced to sit and watch. By the time he re-entered the game — with 4:13 left in regulation — Iolani had pulled to within a bucket of the Red Raiders at 35-33.

Not long after that, the Raiders tied it at 35-all on a basket inside by Hogland.

With the score tied at 40 in the closing seconds, Iolani had possession of the ball, but never got a shot off as Fotu came up with the steal to send it into overtime.

In the extra period, however, it was finally Fotu's time. He recorded another steal on Iolani's very first possession in OT and parlayed that into a couple of free throws and then put back a miss by Avea to give Kahuku a 44-40 lead with 2:22 to play.

After being held to just two points in nine minutes of regulation — his first points didn't come until there was 2:29 left in the fourth quarter — Fotu was responsible for his team's first six points in overtime.

"Towards the end of regulation he did well, but in overtime he took over," Akana said of Fotu, now a junior forward for Saint Mary's (Moraga, California). "Sometimes you get those games where you get into foul trouble, you can't get into it, you're on the bench and instead of being on the floor, you turn into someone cheering, supporting and he's one of those players you've got to have on the floor. In overtime he won it for us. He went to work and did really well."

With Fotu handcuffed with foul trouble, Akana turned to 6-foot-4 senior Taimona Wright, who finished with four points and seven rebounds in 26 minutes. But it was on the defensive end of the court that he was most valuable. Wright did his part to limit Hogland to 14 points, 11 rebounds, seven blocks and five assists in 31 minutes — a respectable job defensively.

"He had to play major minutes and he did really good. He did a great job against Hugh," Akana said.

Helam Baldomero's 3-pointer with five seconds left pulled the Raiders within 51-48 and closed out the scoring.

Akana said that his team drew from the experience of its tightly-contested 42-40 win over Kailua in the OIA semifinals, which took place just nine days prior, also at McKinley.

"That was key, without that game I don't think we beat Iolani," said Akana, whose team was without Villa (concussion) for the Kailua game.

"He wasn't there, but that was kind of a scare and because of that we played well against Kapolei (in the OIA championship game) and then we go right into the state tournament, but if we didn't get that scare from Kailua, I don't think we get past Iolani, let alone win a state championship, so that was a huge game because it got us in that situation where it's tight and they also packed it in, they slowed it down and so we didn't have Jessiya but that woke us up that we're not going to beat everybody by 20 or 30, so that was a huge game for us."

But unlike the OIA semifinal against Kailua, where the Red Raiders shot 20 percent (2 of 10) from beyond the arc, they made 50 percent (4 of 8) of their shots from distance against Iolani in the state semis. Avea was 2 for 2 on 3-pointers, while Villa and Ah-Hoy were both 1 for 3.

Avea finished a rebound shy of a double-double with 12 points and nine boards to go along with three blocks, one assist and a steal. Fotu finished with eight points and Ah-Hoy tallied seven points and seven rebounds in the win.

Although the score was tied four times, Kahuku never trailed.

"Against Kailua we didn't have Jessiya and he was our point guard and our leader so that was the difference, but against Iolani I think that was the game that because we had everybody, we had no excuses," Akana said. "That was that one game that if we don't play together and we weren't patient and we didn't let it come to us, we could have easily lost."

But the Red Raiders withstood Iolani's best shot to make it through to the state final at the Stan Sheriff Center the following night. The potential that the team showed Akana early on in the year was about to be realized.

Most prep basketball fans saw for themselves just how much potential Kahuku had when it went 3-1 and finished third at the prestigious Iolani Classic in December. Its lone loss was against eventual-champ Findlay Prep (Henderson, Nevada) in the semifinal round.

"They were number one in the country," Akana pointed out. "And then after that, I think we didn't lose. They saw what we could do and they continued to do it and after that it was a whole different team. There was that swag, that confidence that we've done what no other Hawaii team has done and all four of our games were against mainland teams, so that's huge and it gave the boys a lot of motivation going forward but they know that the job wasn't done and we still had the whole season in front of us, but it kind of started to reveal who we were and what we were about to do."

The Red Raiders won their final 18 games after the Findlay Prep loss, culminating with their 70-55 victory over Punahou in the state final.

"Punahou was kind of opposite from Iolani, where they like to run-and-gun, they like to go up and down, they rely heavily on the 3s, so it was a good game but we did pull away toward the end. I think that style of play is what we wanted to do and if you're not hitting 3s that could be a problem and I think that kind of got to them toward the end, but after all of that, to finish a game against Punahou — another ILH team — that was special," Akana said of Kahuku's first state championship in more than 40 years.

Avea was selected as Most Outstanding Player of the state tournament, while Fotu and Villa were also named to the All-Tournament team.

Kahuku finished 26-3 overall that season.

All three of the school's previous state basketball crowns came in a four-year span from 1971 to 1974 in the Division-A tournament. Prior to their win over Punahou in 2017, the Red Raiders were 0-3 all-time in state finals in the Division-I era.

"That was fun for the community and the north shore, especially for our program," Akana said.

Villa was named All-OIA East Player of the Year. Fotu was also a first team pick, while Avea made second team and Ah-Hoy third team. Sauvao and Wright earned honorable mention.

As expected, the Red Raiders dominated the All-Hawaii selections. Villa was honored as Division I Player of the Year and was joined on the First Team by both Avea and Fotu.

"As a coach you always want good talent, you always look for the best talent and that's all fine and dandy, but the second part of it is playing together. We had a lot of talent and those guys were able to play as a team. We had a lot of good players, but they stuck together and that was key for that team."

After serving a two-year church mission, Villa redshirted the 2019-'20 season at UH-Manoa before transferring to nearby-Chaminade. Avea played three seasons for the Rainbow Warriors, but opted out for this year back in early December.

Kahuku returned to the Division I state title game the following season, but were upended by Punahou, 64-37.