WAIMEA — An offensive onslaught at the start of the second half sealed a home victory for Waimea High School over Kapaa Friday night. The Menehune scored 11 unanswered points at the end of the third quarter and went on
WAIMEA — An offensive onslaught at the start of the second half sealed a home victory for Waimea High School over Kapaa Friday night.
The Menehune scored 11 unanswered points at the end of the third quarter and went on to defeat the Warriors 42-29.
Caitlyn Owen’s eight points during the third-quarter run helped Waimea extend its lead and Kapaa could never catch up.
Owen finished the night as Waimea’s leading scorer with 12 points.
“We were trying to stay as a team because we usually get frustrated with each other and get down on ourselves a lot,” she said. “We were just trying to pick it up and stay composed.”
Too many turnovers and fouls undid Kapaa High School.
As Waimea’s lead grew, Kapaa became desperate and unsuccessfully tried several shots from three-point range.
“We have to run our offense instead of trying to make silly baskets and throw the ball away,” said Kapaa head coach William Aki. “Once you start falling behind, you think you got to come back by shooting threes instead of going back inside. That hurt us.”
Both teams struggled early but Waimea managed to hold a 16-7 lead at the end of the first half, scoring most of its points from free throws.
The Menehune scored 19 points from the free throw line.
“We gave up 12 turnovers in the first half. That’s one too many,” Aki said. “And we put them on the line six times in the first half. That’s too many.”
While the win itself was not pretty, Waimea head coach Brandon Moises said his team did exactly what he wanted it to.
“The emphasis in the locker room was to win the third quarter,” he said. “We said continue to do what we got to do. Stick with the original first-half plan and see what works. The girls stepped up.”
Kapaa’s Tori Daligcon-Pomaikao sprained her ankle during the third quarter.
She was helped off of the court but returned to finish the game.
“I just tweaked it because I sprained it before, but it’s fine,” Daligcon-Pomaikao said.
Despite reinjuring the ankle, she doesn’t suspect it to be a lingering issue.
Daligcon-Pomaikao said impatience was the reason the team could not get its offense rolling.
“We rushed the ball a lot,” she said. “We weren’t playing like how we usually play. We weren’t settling down.”
Waimea is now riding a two-game win streak and hopes to continue its winning ways when the team faces Kauai on Jan. 3.
“Nothing has been won yet,” Moises said. “There’s a lot more left that they have to offer.”
Kapaa’s next game will be Friday at home against Kauai. The JV game starts at 5:30 p.m. and the varsity game starts after that.
Junior varsity:
Kapaa’s junior varsity squad defeated Waimea 54-38.
Paea Tafea and Kunani Tuttle each scored 12 points for Kapaa.
Lauren Lagoc was Waimea’s leading scorer with 16 points.
