KAPA‘A — Coach Philip Baclayon of the Kapa‘a High School basketball program said another pre-season tournament featuring four off-island teams will open from Thursday. Baclayon piloted the Warrior varsity squad to a commanding lead over the visiting Nanakuli Hawks, Thanksgiving
KAPA‘A — Coach Philip Baclayon of the Kapa‘a High School basketball program said another pre-season tournament featuring four off-island teams will open from Thursday.
Baclayon piloted the Warrior varsity squad to a commanding lead over the visiting Nanakuli Hawks, Thanksgiving night before a good-sized audience at the Bernice Hundley Gym on the campus of Kapa‘a High School.
“When I lived in Honolulu, we used to play on Thanksgiving at the Honolulu Stadium,” one spectator said while watching the Hawks go through its warmups.
The Thanksgiving Day action opened three days of pre-season basketball featuring the junior varsity squads of Kapa‘a, Waimea, Kaua‘i high schools as well as visiting varsity squads from Nanakuli and Maryknoll, playing through Saturday.
“Next year, I’d like to bring down some girls’ teams,” said Baclayon, noting that players from the Kapa‘a girls squad were lined up as spectators along the stage, coming off a successful Thanksgiving imu service where about 400 turkeys and hams were prepared.
The girls leave for the Seabury tournament on Maui, Dec. 2, and coach William Aki said the imu service was a last-minute item, adding that based on the success of Thanksgiving, the team might schedule one for Christmas.
“The good thing about having an imu service is that you work hard only on one day,” he said.
A schedule posted outside the locker room noted that community basketball programs will be playing prior to the high school games.
Waimea dropped its JV game against the Kapa‘a White, and following a change in the schedule, the Kapa‘a White repeated its performance from last week’s Green-and-White game, filling in the void while awaiting the arrival of the Nanakuli squad.
“We’ve still got two more cuts to make in the JV program,” said John Kaneholani, coach at Waimea. “Tonight is the first night that we have coach Daniel Simao helping us on the floor, too. He’s a Kapa‘a grad, so this is homecoming for him.”
Kapa‘a varsity boys lost little time asserting itself against the visiting Hawks.
Following a defensive see-saw, the Warriors opened up, sparked by the breakaways of its quick guard Willis Batol. With strong performances from Adam Clark and Spam Lindsey underneath, the Warriors built up a 13-0 lead before the Hawks found their first bucket after more than four minutes had elapsed.
Following platoon changes, the Warriors continued their domination, building up a lead that exceeded 20 points by the half.
“I don’t know what the final score was, but we won by at least 25 points,” Spam said, while cruising the mall on Black Friday.
The action wraps up Saturday when Kaua‘i JV takes on Kapa‘a Green starting at 3:30 p.m. The Waimea and Kaua‘i JV tip off starting at 5 p.m. followed by Island School taking on Nanakuli at 6:30 p.m. and Kapa‘a wrapping up the action against Maryknoll starting at 8 p.m.
