KAPA‘A — When it looked like the Lady Warriors were on their way to a second straight loss and third in their past four games, they put together a huge comeback to get right back in the chase for a
KAPA‘A — When it looked like the Lady Warriors were on their way to a second straight loss and third in their past four games, they put together a huge comeback to get right back in the chase for a second-round championship.
Kapa‘a overcame a 20-point, first-half deficit against the Waimea Lady Menehune to notch a 45-42 victory, Friday night at the Bernice Hundley Gym in Kapa‘a.
Jessilyn Aki had a game-high 20 points — 18 coming in the second half — to pace Kapa‘a. Mahea Hanie-Grace had 17 points, including a pair of 3-pointers that started the comeback when Waimea appeared to be headed for a blowout win.
Raquelle Matayoshi, Ka‘anoi Marshall, Reggie McCabe and Annie Balesteros all scored two points apiece for Kapa‘a.
Jayme Jacinto led Waimea with 13 points on the night, 10 in the first half. Brandee Victorino scored 11, while Vakeesha Lagazo had six.
Cheyanne Duarte had five points, Jazzelyn Bradbury, Cassandra Owen and Paige Connelly all had two and Robin Moura scored one for the Lady Menehune.
Trailing 28-8 late in the second quarter, Kapa‘a used a 10-1 run to end the half. McCabe hit a jumper to get things started, followed by a Hanie-Grace three out of a timeout. She followed that with a runner off the glass and then knocked down another triple off a McCabe pass.
Waimea, after dominating 13 of the first 16 minutes of action, led 29-18 at halftime.
The Lady Warriors continued to attack to open the third and ran off nine straight points to cut the deficit to a single bucket at 29-27.
Aki banked in a spinning jump shot to tie the game at 31-31 and complete a 23-3 Kapa‘a run.
Rather than fold up, Waimea responded quickly as Jacinto nailed a 3-pointer. She then found Victorino and Lagazo for back-to-back lay-ups and Waimea ended the third quarter with a 38-31 lead.
Both teams struggled to score at the onset of the fourth, with Kapa‘a getting on the board first with a Marshall fast-break lay-up at the 5:30 mark. Hanie-Grace came up with a steal and a bucket, then Aki converted two straight lay-ups to give Kapa‘a a 39-38 lead — its first since 4-2 — with 2:14 remaining in the game.
Aki put the Warriors up three on a driving lay-up with 35 seconds remaining, but the Menehune responded with a Victorino bucket, showing 41-40 on the scoreboard with 18.6 seconds to play.
As Waimea attempted to foul and stop the clock, Aki had her jersey pulled from behind, resulting in an intentional foul call, which constitutes two shots and the ball. She calmly nailed both and Hanie-Grace also converted a pair to ice the unlikely victory.
Waimea employed a similar strategy to Kaua‘i, by picking up Hanie-Grace full-court and attempting to limit her touches with constant ball denial. It worked for the Raiders, limiting the guard to six points in the Kaua‘i win.
However, this time Kapa‘a got enough production from other areas and used full-court pressure to force numerous turnovers and get easy buckets to counter the lack of scoring in its half-court set.
The junior varsity game that preceded was just as exciting, as Waimea and Kapa‘a needed overtime to settle the score. Waimea came away with the 46-41 OT win behind 24 points from Jullynn Ramos.
Jessica Soriano scored 12 for Waimea, while Nicolei Banasihan had seven.
Nine players scored for Kapa‘a, with Kekai Gonsalves, Lele Silva and Lele Hanie all leading the way with nine points apiece.
Results from the Kaua‘i-Island School game were unavailable at press time.
The girls are back on the court Tuesday, when Waimea hosts Kaua‘i with JV beginning at 5:30 p.m., followed by varsity.
Kapa‘a is at home once again to take on Island School in a varsity-only matchup at 7 p.m.
Boys will hit the floor tonight.
