In a feet wetting on February 17, King Kekaulike’s girls’ basketball team descended upon Kaua’i to play each of the island’s teams. Over a two-day period, the Maui school defeated each of the three Kaua’i Interscholastic Federation schools, leaving Waimea,
In a feet wetting on February 17, King Kekaulike’s girls’ basketball team descended upon Kaua’i to play each of the island’s teams.
Over a two-day period, the Maui school defeated each of the three Kaua’i Interscholastic Federation schools, leaving Waimea, Kapa’a and Kaua’i with one loss each.
The Menehunes and Warriors will work toward improvement in Waimea March 1-3 in a hastily thrown together round-robin tournament.
The Red Raiders, meanwhile, will travel to the Kalani Heights Tournament on Oahu over the same time period.
“There aren’t going to be any trophies or prizes [at Waimea],” Menehunes head coach Elton Montemayer said. “It’s just going to be a chance for us and some off-island teams to get some games.”
Montemayer, who coached the Waimea junior varsity boys to a perfect record this season, said he would like to see a more formal tournament materialize in the future. Now, however, he is just happy to have the teams coming to play.
Those schools will be Konawaena, Maui and Molokai.
“Those teams actually were calling me,” Montemayer said. “They wanted to know what we were going to be doing for the preseason.
“This whole thing just came together over the last three weeks or so. The Maui coach is an old Waimea High School coach, so that helped to get them down here.”
The Sabers qualified for the state tournament last year, and should provide a nice barometer for the KIF teams.
“I think they have a lot of returning players,” Montemayer said. “It should be a good chance for us to gauge ourselves.”
The Waimea coach had no extensive knowledge about Konawaena or Molokai.
Kapa’a, the defending KIF champion, will get three games to assess itself after suffering the most lopsided loss of the King Kekaulike visit. The Warriors finished 8-0 in league play last season before falling in their first two contests at the state tournament.
As for the Menehunes, Montemayer’s JV boys exuded energy and ball pressure during their season. The coach said he intends to implement the same style in his girls.
“We’ll see if we can get them playing that way,” Montemayer said. “We have a good mix of girls down here, so it should be fun.”
KHS traveling off-island
Kaiser will be the Red Raiders’ first foe at the Kalani Heights Tournament. The teams square off Thursday at 5:30 p.m.
“It’s an eight-team tourney over there,” Kaua’i head coach Penny Vess said. “I think we’ll match up pretty well. It’s not really a big-name tournament, so we should be pretty competitive. I think we’ll match up well, size- and strength-wise.”
Sports editor Jason Gallic at 245-3681 or mailto:kauaisports@pulitzer.net
