They’ll return to the Big Island on Wednesday having gone 1-3 at the End of the Trails All-Star Division tournament.
But Kahea Schuckert saw the experience the Big Island Stars received on the mainland as more valuable than their record.
The Stars ended play in the tournament’s 30-team Blue Bracket on Sunday with a 40-36 loss to Oregon’s Team Concept Sun.
Six schools in the Oregon City, Ore., area hosted the eight-bracket, 224-team club tournament.
Honokaa senior-to-be Yvonne Daniels hit three 3-pointers down the stretch, helping the Stars whittle down what was a 12-point deficit down to four with about 2 minutes remaining.
In the end, 25 turnovers and 11-of-19 shooting from the free throw line spelled doom for the Big Island club basketball team.
“If we made our free throws, we could have won this,’’ said Schuckert, a Stars co-coach along with Daphne Honma.
Waiakea rising senior Daven Namohala-Roloos and Hilo junior-to-be Amber Vaughn each had six points, and the Stars recorded nine steals in their final game.
HPA junior-to-be Tiana Reynolds, Lahainaluna Middle School eighth-grader Kalo Uhilo and four other Honokaa players — senior Keana Kaohimaunu, junior Shemika Frazier, and sophomores Jasmine Castro and Shayla Ignacio — round out the nine-member Stars.
Before the End of the Trails tournament, the Stars played three more games in an EOT warmup tournament.
Schuckert and Honma first formed the Stars three months ago, but the team conducted full practices for only three weeks before leaving for the mainland. Schuckert said playing against elite competition showed the players what they need to work on before the Big Island Interscholastic Federation girls basketball season begins in December.
“They’ve improved since we got them (together),’’ Schuckert said.
During their stay in Oregon, the Stars also visited various universities, ranging from smaller colleges such as Willamette University and Lewis & Clark to Pac-12 schools such as Oregon and Oregon State.
The purpose: getting the players to realize they have plenty of options outside of Hawaii when they must choose a college to attend.
“We hope this experience will get their eyes open and envision something bigger,’’ Schuckert said.
