Waiakea looked sluggish in the first quarter against Keaau, then used the rest of the game to send a message to the rest of the league that it’s the team to beat.
The Warriors ran past the Cougars 54-23 in a BIIF Division I game on Thursday night at their gym, trailing 9-6 after the first eight minutes.
From there, Waiakea kept hitting baskets, contested shots and capitalized on every Keaau mistake. The Cougars finished with 19 turnovers, and the Warriors scored 12 points off those giveaways.
Kiai Apele scored 13 points, William Soares had 10 points, and Peter Suiaunoa came off the bench and added 10 points for the Warriors (1-0), who shot 50 percent from the field and finished with just seven turnovers.
Ace Bernal scored six points, and Patrick Mears added five points for the Cougars (1-1), who converted 29 percent on field goals and didn’t have any type of consistent ball flow.
Soares played the point in Waiakea’s 1-3-1 zone and forced Keaau to work hard for open shots. The length of Elijah Blankenship, Suiaunoa, and Makana Kaehuaea-Credo in the post also posed problems, and the Warriors often held the Cougars to one shot.
“In the first quarter, I was disappointed with the effort. We didn’t come out with intensity and energy,” Waiakea coach Paul Lee said. “But in the second quarter, we made some adjustments. When Will plays like that, he gives other teams problems. They were making passes from the free throw line, and we had some layups off that.
“Peter gives us size, and he runs the floor really hard. It’s good to have an inside-outside game. It helps the guard to have better looks from the perimeter.”
When the Warriors weren’t scoring layups off turnovers, their bigs — Blankenship, Suiaunoa, and Kaehuaea-Credo, established good post position, got fed the ball and banked in easy shots.
Waiakea’s post offense and transition attack were effective, and the long-range shooting took the night off. Apele hit a 3-pointer to ignite the 15-2 second-quarter blitz, and backup Keelen Andres sank a triple in the fourth quarter.
The Warriors protected the rim, and the Cougars couldn’t make the extra pass and attack the basket. They went just 2 of 4 from the free throw line. Waiakea made 4 of 9 in a mostly foul-free, fast-paced game.
For the Cougars, it’s a disheartening loss because the team is senior heavy. All of their starters, Mears, Bernal, Brandon Pagala, Isaiah Akana, Neth Nethon, are seniors.
Last season, Keaau beat Hilo and Kealakehe in play-in games to reach the postseason, then lost to Kamehameha in the BIIF semifinals. They returned four starters and a ton of experience.
But there’s still apparently a gulf between Keaau, which last reached states in 2009, and the Big Four of Hilo, Kamehameha, Konawaena, and Waiakea. The Big Four have taken turns winning the last nine BIIF crowns.
The scary thing is Waiakea wasn’t operating at full-strength Death Star mode. Rekky Prudencio, the team’s long-range gunner, didn’t hit any 3-pointers and finished with six points.
“We’ve got more experienced players, and that makes a coaching job a lot easier,” Lee said.
In the JV game, it was Keaau 38, Waiakea 21.
