The big man on campus at Kaua‘i High School is literally the biggest man on campus. Senior center Futi Tavana, who stands at 6’8″ is the main reason why the Red Raider basketball squad is 4-0 this season. Tavana is
The big man on campus at Kaua‘i High School is literally the biggest man on campus.
Senior center Futi Tavana, who stands at 6’8″ is the main reason why the Red Raider basketball squad is 4-0 this season.
Tavana is also the leading scorer in the KIF, averaging almost 20 points per contest. The next player, Waimea’s Chad Barba is six points back, averaging 13 a game.
However, if you think that his season has gone pretty well so far, then you might want to know that he is also being hobbled by a leg injury, which plagued him since the first game of the season.
In last Friday’s game against Kapa‘a, Tavana sat out the entire first quarter and most of the second stanza, due to that injury, which seems to be getting better with each passing game.
“I was actually going to not let him play the entire game, but he approached me and said he really wanted to play, so I let him play,” Kaua‘i head coach Brandon Fujita said.
According to Fujita, Tavana was at 95 0.000000or Tuesday’s game against the Menehune.
“That (Tuesday’s game) was the first time he ran that much in two weeks,” Fujita said.
Tabbed unstoppable by opposing league coaches, the best defense against Tavana has been himself, because when he is on the court, no one player in the KIF can guard him.
“He’s really tough and we’re just trying to contain him this season,” Waimea head coach Elton Montemayor said at the beginning of the season.
Tavana also connected on his first slam of the season, even if it wasn’t a clean one, it still went through the hoop after rattling around the rim.
KIF hoops continues on Friday, as Kapa‘a searches for its first win of the season at Waimea. JV action starts at 5:30 p.m. and varsity action follows 20 minutes after the completion of the JV game.
