How sweet it would have been for Ka’u girls basketball and coach Cy Lopez.
The Trojans were hanging with Punahou a few weeks ago at the HPA Girls Tip-Off Classic with a chance to win or tie the game on the final possession and earn bragging rights against a state power.
Trailing by two points and with time ticking away, Kianie Medeiros-Dancel beat a defender and was about to dribble into the paint, her coach said, when the sophomore slipped on a wet spot on the court and was called for traveling. This denied Lopez a chance to take a picture of a scoreboard that read Ka’u beating Punahou — and he wouldn’t have had to tell anyone that the Buffanblu only sent their second team to the tournament.
“They never would have asked,” Lopez said with a smile, “first team or second team, I would have told them we beat Punahou.”
The Trojans played three Oahu teams in Waimea, prompting some opposing players to ask, “Where is Ka’u? Is it in Kona? Hilo?”
Lopez and assistant Jen Makuakane, husband and wife, and their staff are working their hardest to put Ka’u on the map.
No, the Trojans likely won’t be confused with Konawaena or even Division II counterpart Kamehameha this season, but they have a sparkling new gym to call home, Lopez has a club team up and running, and all his girls have a college player to look up to in Denisha Navarro.
The early scouting report on the new gym in Pahala is that the rims aren’t too forgiving. On Tuesday in its regular-season opener against Keaau, the Trojans went a costly 8 of 25 from the free-throw line in a 37-31 loss.
“Not a shooter’s rim,” Lopez said. “After the game, the girls told me, ‘Coach, I guess we’re shooting free throws tomorrow?’
“That’s all we did Wednesday.”
Sitting outside Hilo High’s gym Thursday, Lopez said the Trojans’ digs rival any on the island.
“It brought tears to my eyes when I walked in,” the fifth-year coach said. “Right now, nothing compares to it for me.
“Someone has to hang on the rims, but the place is beautiful.”
The Trojans’ talent level appears headed in the right direction, too. Ka’u has another year of experience under its belt after finishing 2-9 last season — losing to Kamehameha in the BIIF semifinals — and it’s building for brighter days ahead with sophomores Reisha Jara, Mee Lin Kinin, and Medeiros-Dancel.
The lone senior starter is Alysha Gustafson-Savella, who can play any position on the court.
“She is the hustler and leader of the team,” Lopez said. “Everybody looks up to her.”
Jara and Kinin have the makings of a promising backcourt, junior Analei Emmsley is an athletic guard/forward and sophomore Malia Corpuz is the first player off the bench and one of the Trojans’ best defensive players. If Ka’u has a post presence, it will come from either Dacy Andrade Davis or Tristan Davis, and Alyssa Bivings and Marilou Manantan will float between the varsity team and junior varsity.
Playing at the Vikings’ Holiday Prep Classic on Thursday, the Trojans got off to cold start — Lopez said that has become a problem — as Kamehameha ripped off the game’s first 22 points.
Jara helped lead Ka’u back to respectability. She hit a 12-foot jumper — after Lopez yelled at her to shoot — ran the court for a fast-break layup and finished with six points in a 35-16 loss.
“With Reisha, you have to wake her up before she starts doing stuff, but once she gets going, she is solid,” Lopez said. “I believe we’ll grow and me and my coaching staff are not going to give up teaching them the right way.”
Lopez has six children ranging in age from 25 to 2, and he would have been just as happy to have someone else start a club team in the area to take time off his hands. No one else did, so Hokulele (shooting star) is in its second year for boys and girls in grades six and up, finally giving Ka’u a feeder system.
“I tell the kids that we hardly get to see our babies, so you have to sacrifice and come to practice,” Lopez said.
He and his wife also get far away coaching help from Navarro, a 2015 graduate who is playing her sophomore season at Pierce College in Washington (approximately 30 miles south of Seattle).
“She is a role model for the girls, and she always tries to keep in touch after each game,” Lopez said. “We ask her for help, and she’ll draw plays for us.”
