KAILUA-KONA — Bobbie Awa doesn’t worry about streaks, stats or any of the other mind-boggling numbers her Wildcats have amassed during her time at the helm in Kealakekua.
Winning every night has always been the primary focus for Awa, and even after all these years, nine consecutive BIIF titles, a triple-digit league winning streak and seven state championship banners, it isn’t getting old.
“Never,” Awa said with a laugh after the Wildcats’ latest BIIF title on Friday night. “It is a great feeling every year. If the tides turn and it becomes our time to be on the other side of the coin, I know it is not going to feel good. So no, I don’t ever get tired of winning.”
The latest BIIF conquest for the ‘Cats earned them the No. 1 seed at the HHSAA Division I tournament, which begins today with first round games and runs through Saturday.
With the top seed, Konawaena receives a bye to the quarterfinals and will face the winner of Kamehameha-Maui and Leilehua. BIIF runner-up Hilo is also in the field, taking on Mililani today at 4 p.m.
There was a realistic chance that the two-time defending state champion Wildcats wouldn’t get the No. 1 seed, with many of the state polls putting ILH champion Maryknoll ahead of the Big Island’s best squad.
Konawaena (15-2, 12-0) does have two blemishes on its resume this season, a pair of lopsided losses to nationally ranked California squads Archbishop Mitty and Salesian at the highly-competitive Iolani Classic. However, a 12-0 league record and average margin of victory just a tick under 44 points is hard to ignore.
Championship pedigree is also an important factor. Since 2004, the Wildcats have made the state championship game 10 times, winning seven of those contests. One other time Konawaena finished as the state’s third place team.
But after Friday’s convincing 51-23 victory against Hilo in the BIIF championship, Awa — always humble despite her program’s wild success — was anything but concerned about what number would come before her team’s name on the schedule.
“There are so many people that worry about the seedings and standings, and maybe I should — I don’t know. But we don’t really worry about it because they are going to match us with whoever they want to match us up with. If you are going to be No. 1 you have to beat them all,” Awa said. “So wherever they want to put us we are going to be good with it, prepare, and do our best.”
With that mindset, the Wildcats have been able to maintain their legendary level of sustained success. The team’s win streak currently sits at 104 against BIIF opponents. The last time Konawaena lost to a league foe eight-plus years ago, the current crop of players were just learning how to dribble the basketball.
It also helps having one of the most successful youth programs in the state in the Kona Stingrays, which the Awa’s run in the high school offseason. It keeps their players playing more than just a season at a time, which is one of the biggest problems for other programs on the island trying to keep pace.
In the process, the Stingray-Konawaena combo has spawned some of the state’s best girls basketball talent, from former Washington State standouts Lia Galdeira and Dawnyelle Awa, to current Cougar freshman Chanelle Molina.
Filling the massive void left behind by Chanelle Molina’s graduation was a big part of the storyline for the Wildcats this season. Her early contributions at Washington State are a testament to that. She was a day-one starter in Pullman and had 12 consecutive double-digit scoring performances, highlighted by a 33-point output against then No. 9 UCLA. But just as she was picking up steam and garnering her fair share of national attention, Molina tore her ACL in early January, bringing an early end to her freshman campaign.
“Chanelle was a different type of person — very unselfish and so confident in her game,” Awa said. “We never had to tell her, ‘this is your team, this is your game, the ball needs to be in your hands, you need to score for us to win.’ She knew it inside of her.
“This group of girls, they are very good team players. They are very unselfish. They are always looking for their teammates and they feel every one of them can score. I always feel like that with our teams. They will find the right opportunity.”
The cupboard was far from bare for Awa. The Wildcats still have two-thirds of the Molina trio in Celena and Cherilyn, top prospects in their own right. Celena Molina announced earlier this season she will be joining her sister at Washington State, and Cherilyn also has an offer on the table from the school.
Add to that equation junior Mikayla Tablit, who has emerged as one of the top scoring options for the Wildcats, and big freshman forward Caiyle Kaupu, and the Wildcats are loaded up for another run.
The biggest change for Konawaena this year has not been on the court. It’s been on the sideline, where Dawnyelle Awa has assumed the co-head coach position beside her mom, who just happens to be the winningest girls high school coach in history. Dawnyelle graduated from Washington State last year, but already has a chance to add a BIIF and state title in her coaching debut. A good start if she hopes to ever catch her mom’s ever-expanding list of records.
“She is back and wants to be a coach. This year gave her a good taste of what it is like,” Bobbie Awa said. “She breaks down the film, something we never used to do. We only worried about ourselves and not what the other team was doing. She brought that to our team this year and it is a good tool for us.”
Another aspect the younger Awa brings is a major disdain for losing, an appropriate condition to have in Kealakekeua.
“She doesn’t like losing. Chanelle had said that before too. They hate losing more than they like winning,” Bobbie Awa said. “The fire is there, she has been in a winning program and wants to keep it that way.”
