ILH Girls Basketball
No. 2 Iolani rebounds to rout No. 3 Punahou


  



Wed, Jan 11, 2023 @ Punahou


Final 1 2 3 4  
Iolani (12-3, 20-5) 17 12101857
Punahou (5-8, 9-9) 14 4 10 1240
L. Torres-Kahapea 18 pts  10/13 FTs
H. Ohta 18 pts  2 3pm  4/4 FTs

No. 2 Iolani rebounded from a humbling loss on Saturday and with a renewed energy poured it on No. 3 Punahou, 57-40, in an Interscholastic League of Honolulu Division I contest at Hemmeter Fieldhouse Wednesday.

Haylie-Anne Ohta powered a balanced Raiders' scoring effort with 18 points and two 3-pointers. Mele Sake muscled her way for nine, Keiki McGee added eight, and Paige Oh and Callie Pieper each with seven.

"In the ILH, we tell the girls every win is huge. If you get a W, count your blessings because it's a rugged league where anybody can beat anybody," Iolani coach Dean Young said.

Iolani's two losses came against No. 1 Maryknoll and the Raiders (6-2) were held to five points in the second half and was blown out by 21 on Saturday. It was a clean slate for a new week.

"Losing forces you to look in the mirror and to improve. Winning can make you complacent. We went back to work. Told the girls to spend a little time to feel the pain and flush the pain come back on Monday with a good attitude and energy and they did. A lot of smiles and laughter. As coaches we worked on some new things. Losing can be good," Young said.

Iolani jumped out to a 11-4 lead behind Mele Sake and Pieper but Punahou (4-4) roared back with transition buckets from Keilani Stewart and Laynee Torres-Kahapea who combined to score the Buffanblu's 14 first quarter points.

"She and Callie, our bigs we love when they have success and the team feels it and it's contagious," Young said.

Davina Li hit a corner 3 after receiving a skip pass from Torres-Kahapea for their only made field goal of the quarter and trailed, 21-17. McGee split a pair of free throws and Mia Frye hit a 3-pointer. Oh's drive put Iolani up by double digits and the Raiders closed out the half on a 8-1 run capped by Otha's steal and layup.

"Their transition, we weren't doing a good job picking them up full court and letting them get baskets in transition. We want to make them earn in the half court. We gave up six points in transition. Once we took care of that and slowed their transition down. We forced them to play half court offense, we got into a rhythm," Young said of the second quarter turnaround.

Iolani led by as much as 14 and Punahou trimmed it to nine after Stewart converted Torres-Kahapea's assist, but McGee answered with a runner that beat the buzzer to lead, 39-28 going into the fourth.

The Raiders went up by as much as 19 with reserves finishing the final minutes.

Torres-Kahapea led the Buffanblu with 18 points and Stewart finished with nine.

"She's a hard matchup for any of our players. We tried to rotate them to keep them fresh. It takes a lot of energy to chase her around. She's such a good player and so dynamic and aggressive. You can't just put one girl on her or you'll burn out," Young said of Torres-Kahapea.

Iolani hosts Damien (0-8) on Friday, Jan. 13 at 6 p.m. while Punahou goes to Kamehameha-Kapalama (3-5) on the same night.

Both teams will face each other for the final time in the regular season at Iolani on Jan. 20 at 6:30 p.m.



Reach Brandon Ching at [email protected].




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