It was the kind of game plan and execution that would’ve made Floyd Mayweather proud.
The Kalani Falcons spread the court four-corners style like an early 1980s Dean Smith team, jabbing and running away from the bigger Farrington Corners for all four quarters, capturing their first basketball championship with a 42-34 win at McKinley Student Council Gymnasium.
With that, Kalani captured its first league title after four consecutive trips to the D-II final. The bleach-blond Falcons will get to bleach their head coach Nathan Davis’ hair, as well, thanks to a deal they made back in preseason.
“I’m super happy for the guys. They worked extremely hard from the time Micah Visoria (of Roosevelt) hit that 3 last year,” Davis said, recalling a narrow last-second loss in last year’s title game. “It’s practicing at 6 a.m. and all the hard work. I’d like to coach this team every year if I could.”
Jaemi Harris, who sat most of the first half with foul trouble, led Kalani (8-6) with 12 points. The nuts and bolts of Davis’ game plan was carried out by virtually his entire lineup. Ryan Jacobi (eight points), Micah Kawano (eight points, eight rebounds), Toby Mitchell (seven points) and Kapaa Nishimura spread the court to the maximum and played keep away all night, attacking on mismatches and slow recoveries.
It wasn’t an all-out stall. More like clock management for all 32 minutes, and it worked like a charm. What didn’t work so well was a run-and-gun approach four weeks ago that led to a 61-58 regular-season win by Farrington at Kalani’s gym. That night, the Governors connected on 12 3-pointers, including five by sophomore guard Felcris Ahadain.
“A lot of it was the way Farrington played,” Davis said of the first matchup. “Felcris hit five 3s in the first half and our shot selection was sub-par in that kind of a game. So this time we wanted on an A-level shot.”
This time, Farrington seemed nervous, shooting 1-for-13 from the field in the first half. Zeke Santiago led the Govs with 16 points. No other Gov scored more than four, and though they outrebounded Kalani 25-21, they committed 20 turnovers and shot 26 percent from the field (9-for-35).
“We couldn’t hit nothing,” coach Steven Leopoldo said. “Hat’s off to Kalani. They had a good game plan. The refs weren’t very kind to us, and we missed a few layups. We’ll bounce back and keep our boys’ heads up. The game’s over and we’re moving on.”
Both teams have already qualified for the upcoming state tournament.
The Governors were just 1-for-7 from the arc in the first three quarters as Kalani built a 28-12 lead. The Govs dug down and went on a 9-2 run to begin the fourth quarter, getting a three-point play by Santiago as they cut the lead to 30-21 with 4:25 left.
Turnovers, however, continued to drag the Govs down. The one hope Farrington had was at the foul line. Kalani had the bonus early, but shot just 10-for-25 at the charity stripe in the fourth quarter to keep Farrington’s hopes alive.
Still, Farrington got within 37-29 after a 3 by Santiago and a bank-shot trey by Randall Alob with 1:14 to go. Free throws by Kawano, Pepe and Mitchell sealed the win.
Farrington was chasing its first D-II league title since 2011. The Governors won OIA D-I titles in ’14 and ’15 (Allan Silva), and took league titles in the pre-classification era in ’83 (Harry Pacarro) and ’74 (Bob Ikehara).
