KAPA‘A — Tuesday night at 7 p.m. is the showdown for the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation boys basketball title. The playoff game for all the marbles will be at the Bernice Hundley Gym, the same site where the Kaua‘i High School
KAPA‘A — Tuesday night at 7 p.m. is the showdown for the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation boys basketball title.
The playoff game for all the marbles will be at the Bernice Hundley Gym, the same site where the Kaua‘i High School team came back to a 60-51 win over Kapa‘a, Saturday night.
Earlier in the evening, the Kaua‘i JV Raiders outgunned Kapa‘a 21-8 in the final quarter to take a 58-48 win behind a game-high 20 points from Willis Batol, eight coming in the final period. Joe Duronslet and Kapono Cummings each added 13 points.
Arnel Tangonan finished with 14 points for the Warrior JV, including a pair of first-half treys.
Kapa‘a varsity outgunned and outran the Raiders in the first half, taking a 34-25 lead at the half behind Kekoa Prem who nailed a first-quarter trey among his 11 first-half points.
At one point, Kapa‘a substituted its speed for height as the Warriors played four guards with Viliami Masaniai doing the rubbish detail.
But Kaua‘i settled and Chad Koga came alive with 10 critical second-half points, including going 4-4 from the charity stripe to lead the turnaround.
With 6:10 showing in the game, Koga’s pair pulled Kaua‘i to within two, 46-44. Another Koga bucket from eight o’clock at the 3:43 mark pulled Kaua‘i into the lead 46-49 only to have Kapa‘a answer on a Duke Pauli bucket.
Kaleo Cummings turned the tide for good at the 1:31 mark with a bucket from Koga, and charity points from Florence and Silas Tacsiat icing the win.
Prem peppered the hoop from the outside, but the Warriors could only manage a split charity pair from Pauli in the final 29 seconds.
Cummings topped the scoring with a game-high 19 points followed by Florence finishing with 16 points. Austin Simao nailed a pair of treys, Niko Chow hustled for five and pairs from Cody Iwasaki and Tacsiat rounded out the comeback before a loud capacity crowd.
Prem had the high score for Kapa‘a with 15 points followed by Kekoa Colipano and Pauli with eight and seven points, respectively. Masaniai finished with seven points and pairs from Cody Abigania and Sean Shigematsu rounded out the effort.
