Girls basketball

The setting was casual, but when the team in black got serious, there was no stopping it. Down 16-0, Dallas Martinez and Kaelyn Espinda sparked a comeback as Team Black rallied past Team Blue for a 41-33 win in the final of the high school division of the 25th Annual Mufi Hannemann Basketball Jamboree at Manoa District Park gym. Martinez (Sacred Hearts) and Espinda (Kaimuki), both juniors, entered with the second group and got the rally going. Team Black led […]

The Konawaena Wildcats landed three players on the all-tournament team at the Snapple/HHSAA Girls Basketball State Championships at Blaisdell Center. Senior guard Cherilyn Molina was selected the tournament’s most outstanding player for a second year in a row as the Wildcats upset top-seeded Maryknoll 47-32 in the final. Teammates Mikayla Tablit and Caiyle Kaupu was also voted to the team. Senior guard Saydee Aganus, who led Kamehameha-Hawaii over top-seeded St. Francis 41-32 in the Division II final, was picked most […]

Numbers reflect action. For nine weeks, Maryknoll was the No. 1 team in the Star-Advertiser Girls Basketball Top 10. Not just the team at the top, but the Lady Spartans were a unanimous No. 1 from the first poll until last week. Today, voters followed the action and Konawaena is No. 1 in the season finale, collecting all 14 first-place votes. The Wildcats (26-2) ran the table at the Snapple/HHSAA Girls Basketball State Championships, beating Moanalua 59-32, No. 3 Lahainaluna […]

In the year 2018, the Kamehameha-Hawaii Warriors confirmed a widespread belief that there is and always has been a commitment in the Big Island Interscholastic Federation to excellence in girls basketball. The Warriors put their seal of triumph into the history books by pounding top-seeded St. Francis 41-32 on Saturday night in the Division II final of the Snapple/HHSAA Girls Basketball State Championships at Blaisdell Center. Along with Konawaena’s four-peat of the D-I state title, the BIIF laid claim to […]

Epic? This was rematch squared. A continuing saga of Shakespearean-level drama and destiny. In the end, the talented, deep, top-seeded Maryknoll Spartans still couldn’t topple the big green Wildcats at the top of the mountain. Konawaena’s 47-32 win for a state-title four-peat was a demonstration in death by a thousand paper cuts. The Wildcats executed Coach Bobbie Awa’s game plan to the nth degree of success. By the end, it was as if Konawaena (26-2 including nonconference games) extended its […]

And then there were two. The Division I final in tonight’s Snapple/HHSAA Girls Basketball State Championships pits the same two schools that met in the past two years: Maryknoll and Konawaena. Maryknoll wanted nothing more than to win state championships. The 11 seniors on this season’s roster has known triumph with four ILH titles in a row. They’ve known heartbreak, losing the state championship game in 2016 and ’17. Both times, Konawaena took home the big koa trophy. Three-time defending […]

They do a lot of good things together. The Konawaena Wildcats also wear pink Crocs everywhere. That’s the influence of longtime assistant coach and former state champion Jessica Hanato, who has been wearing green Crocs since the current Wildcats were still in diapers. “It’s a team thing. We all have it. We started a trend and everybody started wearing it at school,” senior guard Cherilyn Molina said. These are clearly not your sister’s Wildcats, not that it would be fair […]