LIHUE — The Warriors held off a late Red Raider rally to start the season with a road win. Kapaa High School’s varsity boys basketball team defeated Kauai High, 54-45, in the Kauai Interscholastic Federation season opener in Lihue. “It’s
LIHUE — The Warriors held off a late Red Raider rally to start the season with a road win.
Kapaa High School’s varsity boys basketball team defeated Kauai High, 54-45, in the Kauai Interscholastic Federation season opener in Lihue.
“It’s something we’ve been preaching to them — about being resilient, working hard and leaving it all on the court,” said Kapaa assistant head coach Bronson Bautista. “They did it, but give credit to Kauai High. We had a good lead, and they fought back. It was anybody’s game at that point.”
Facing a 38-27 deficit at the end of the third quarter, Kauai senior forward Kekoa Tecson kicked of the final period with a steal and a fast break dunk to energize the home team and supporters.
That dunk sparked a 14-5 Red Raider run and the Warriors lead was cut to two points.
“The goal was to get down to under six points, and we did that. We got to two, and it was a matter of not making the mistakes. But we made the mistakes,” said Kauai head coach Ipo Yoshioka. “We made more mistakes than they did, and they capitalized on that. They put more (points) on the board, and they came out winners tonight.”
“We played well, but we made one too many mistakes — throwing away the ball, bad passes and missing free throws,” Yoshioka added. “It’s a young team. I’m not going to use ‘a young team’ as an excuse because all my teams play. They’re in varsity. Young team, old team, it doesn’t matter. Just made mistakes and it hurt us.”
Later in the period, a three-pointer by Kapaa junior guard Daniel Yabes helped halt the Kauai rally.
“I told the boys that a dunk is just two points. That’s all it is,” Bautista said. “After that I’m sure they came down and scored another two, but then we scored five unanswered. Basketball is a game of runs. That’s all it is. They had a good run, then we had a good run. Fortunately, we finished the game with a run. That’s all that really mattered.”
The Red Raiders’ loss was the first in the regular season since 2013. Kauai High was 16-0 the last two regular seasons en route to winning consecutive KIF championships.
“You get two great seasons or three great seasons or four, or like Golden State, you can get (24) straight wins. But realistically in life, it’s not going to last forever,” Yoshioka said. “You got to accept it, keep working hard, keep teaching, and the kids will be fine.”
“(Nobody) stays on top of the mountain. You got to come down sometime. It’s just a matter of (us) falling, and then climbing right back up,” he added.
Yabes was Kapaa’s leading scorer with 17 points, including three 3-pointers. He also had four assists and two steals. Senior forward Mosese Fifita had a double-double with 12 points, 10 rebounds and an assist.
Junior guard Bryce Johnson-Cormack had 14 points, six rebounds and three assists for Kauai High. Junior guard Joseph Cumlat, who was injured in the third period and didn’t return, had 10 points, three steals and an assist.
In the junior varsity game, the JV Red Raiders won their home opener versus the Warriors, 49-41.
“Kapaa’s always a tough matchup every year. They always give us a good, exciting game,” said Kauai JV head coach Danilo Tutop.” The kids played well though. We just got back from our preseason, which helped us get the bugs out. We did pretty well, but we got a lot to work on.”
Freshman guard Christopher Cromartie had 17 points for the JV Red Raiders. Sophomore forward Noah Rall had 14 points for Kapaa.
Kauai High (0-1 KIF) will next play at Waimea on Wednesday. The JV game will begin 5:30 p.m. and the varsity will follow. Kapaa (1-0 KIF) will next host Waimea on Wednesday, Jan. 6.
