Kamehameha sophomore Taylor Sullivan may not score the most points. But she’s always the team leader in energy, and that was obvious on Thursday night at Waiakea High’s gym. ADVERTISING Kamehameha sophomore Taylor Sullivan may not score the most points.
Kamehameha sophomore Taylor Sullivan may not score the most points. But she’s always the team leader in energy, and that was obvious on Thursday night at Waiakea High’s gym.
Behind their blueprint of Sullivan’s contagious intensity, ball pressure and depth, the Warriors walloped St. Francis 65-36 in the quarterfinals at the HHSAA Division II state girls basketball tournament.
The No. 2 seed and BIIF champion Warriors (9-4) play ILH runner-up Mid-Pacific (13-3) in the semifinals at 7 p.m. Friday at Keaau High’s gym.
Saydee Aganus scored 16 points, Jordyn Mantz had 12 and Sullivan added 10 points for Kamehameha, which shot 55 percent (23 of 42) from the field and led 38-24 at halftime.
Aganus and Mantz had efficient shooting nights, each going 5 of 6 on field goals, including 1 of 1 from 3-point range. Kyla Aguiar chipped in eight points off the bench, dropping 2 of 3 from long distance.
Skye Ah Yat scored 12 points on 4 of 14 shooting to lead the ILH No. 3 team Saints (10-6), who converted just 26 percent (13 of 50) from the floor.
Sullivan is only a 5-foot-8 forward and often faces much taller trees, but she grabs her share of rebounds, relying on her savvy, positioning and toughness. She had six boards, and the bigger and beefier Saints only outrebounded the Warriors, 39-31.
She hit 3 of 8 shots and made 4 of 5 free throws. But she offers more than stats for Kamehameha, which is guard-oriented but really has one big in Sullivan.
She’s the one coach Weston Willard points to as the most indispensable.
“She’s really our foundation because she’s so versatile and competitive,” he said. “She’s strong and coordinated. She can shoot, pass, defend, and run the floor. She brings an intensity that gets the team going. The team feeds off her intensity.”
The Warriors’ best technical skill is their ball pressure. They threw the Poe sisters, senior Caitlin and sophomore Camille, on St. Francis point guard Kelli Okubo, who was hounded into nine of her team’s 19 turnovers.
“We have the luxury of going with one Poe sister to the next,” Willard said. “She’s a great player and we had a game plan for No. 4 (Okubo), and Saydee at the 1 (point guard) got us going.”
Kamehameha isn’t tall, but everyone is athletic and can run the floor and slash through seams in any zone defense, especially Aganus, who made 5 of 8 free throws and spent the majority of her time zipping to the rim and going right around the Saints.
When the Saints opened with a zone, the Warriors scored a countless stream of layups off turnovers or in transition, and outscored them off giveaways, 50-0 or a stat close to that. Kamehameha’s athleticism also helped on the other end of the floor.
The home team had 18 turnovers, but the Poe sisters, Aganus and Co. raced back on defense and allowed no easy baskets. To beat the Warriors, the Saints needed to knocked down shots or post up but clanked too many mid-range jumpers.
Then the Warriors started dropping shots from long distance. Aguiar had two 3-pointers while Aganus and Mantz had one each for the Big Island bombers, who finished 4 of 8 from long distance; the Saints went 1 of 8 from 3-point range. (Kamehameha’s best 3-ball shooter Hera Salmeron was out with an injury.)
When the Saints switched to a man defense in the second half, Kamehameha kept running their read-and-react, cut-pass-and-layup drill. It’s all about timing and execution, and the Warriors ran that bank shot clinic pretty much to perfection.
“We run a five out and there’s no way a team can defend it in man because it’s read and react,” Willard said. “That’s why we see so much zone. We’ve got a lot of high basketball IQ players.”
The loudest cheers of the night came when sophomore Tehani Kupahu-Canon ran the floor, caught a pass from freshman Meghan Wong and dropped in another countless layup. That made it 65-34 with 34 seconds remaining.
The victory was wrapped up long before that, and Sullivan, the energizer Warrior, was on the bench with a well-deserved rest.
St. Francis 15 9 4 8 — 36
Kamehameha 14 24 17 10 — 65
