Hawaii Hawaii Prep hung with McKinley for a half, came out on the wrong end of a physical contest against St. Francis and played competitively vs. McKinley. ADVERTISING Hawaii Hawaii Prep hung with McKinley for a half, came out on
Hawaii Hawaii Prep hung with McKinley for a half, came out on the wrong end of a physical contest against St. Francis and played competitively vs. McKinley.
No victories yet for Ka Makani girls basketball team, but the preseason trip to Oahu was far from a lost cause.
In fact, there were many signs of progress in the eyes of coach Craig Kimura.
“We played reasonably well and better than I expected,” he said. “We need to win a game. We have to win a game this year.”
Kimura is entering his 18th season at the helm of the program and has witnessed the highs and lows. Ka Makani won a BIIF Division II title in 2007 and were a mainstay at the HHSAA tournament from 2006-12.
But rebuilding seasons quickly multiplied in Waimea.
“We’re talking about starting from ground zero,” Kimura said. “They had never played basketball before, but they worked hard.”
Led by then-senior Anna Juan, HPA won one game in 2014-15 before going winless last season. The bulk of the team returns for its third season together, and though the corp has improved, the group still hasn’t spearheaded a victory on their own.
“We just can’t sustain consistency,” Kimura said. “We’ll have these spurts where they get out of it and fall eight points behind.”
HPA gets three more shots at Oahu teams at its Ka Makani Girls Basketball Tip-Off Classic, playing Campbell (Thursday), University (Friday) and Punahou (Saturday) before starting the BIIF regular season Wednesday at Hilo.
The roster is small with only eight players, but HPA isn’t lacking in size, especially by BIIF standards, led by 6-foot-1 junior center Coco Shafer.
“She is starting to get there, and once she does she can be a handful and a significant factor,” Kimura said.
Junior Kiele Wise plays “really long” at 5-9, Kimura said, and two senior returnees are 5-6 point guard Chyna Hanano and 5-8 Jazzy Buerano.
Junior Emma Saito will play a bigger role, sophomore Mikaela Chong is up from the junior varsity, and Kimura is excited to see the development of Macey Van Tassell.
One of the highlight games of the Ka Makani tournament is Thursday as Punahou and Hilo match up in a battle of teams that reached the state Division I quarterfinals last season.
Kimura, of course, has more modest goals in mind.
“The girls are easy to work with,” he said. “We should be competitive in Division II against everybody but Kamehameha.”
