There hasn’t been an obstacle that the Lady Trojans of Mililani have not overcome.
This time, it was an instant classic to clinch the OIA West girls basketball title. Akemi Kawamata scored 10 of her 12 points in the second half as No. 7 Mililani rallied from a 12-point deficit for a 32-30 win over No. 10 Campbell on Wednesday night.
Mililani is 8-0 in the OIA West (16-7 overall) and clinched the top seed by giving Campbell (8-1) its first league loss. If Mililani loses to Radford on Friday, it will still have the head-to-head tiebreaker edge over Campbell.
Brooke Kurasaki scored 10 of her game-high 13 points in the first half and led a super defensive effort by the Trojans that limited Campbell to 13 second-half points. A packed house at Mililani erupted as the Trojans rallied from a 26-14 second-half deficit.
“Brooke took on the brunt of everything. She was scoring. She was driving. They were doubling her and she was tired, so I knew I had to step up,” Kawamata said.
With Mililani down 30-29, Kurasaki made two free throws with 49.7 seconds left to give the Trojans their first lead of the game. Kurasaki deflected a pass by Campbell’s Jaynalyn Sotelo moments later, and she was fouled after corralling the loose ball.
She made one of two foul shots for a 32-30 cushion with 18.7 seconds to play. Sotelo launched an open 3 from 24 feet away, but the shot curled out of the rim. Campbell’s Kamai Lei Ringor rebounded, but her layup shot in traffic also rimmed out.
Mililani’s Autumn Lagafuaina rebounded and was fouled with 4.7 seconds left. She missed both free throws and the Sabers called time out with 3.6 seconds to go.
Sotelo caught the inbounds pass in stride and dribbled up the right sideline, but was double-teamed and lost the ball. Time expired without a shot attempt by the Sabers.
“I’m so proud of the girls. It was a whole team effort. We miss coach Kyle (Kurasaki) and our other coaches. We miss them and we couldn’t have done this without them,” interim coach Jojo Nicolas said.
Kurasaki was removed as head coach hours before Mililani’s opening game at the ‘Iolani Classic on Dec. 12.
“The girls, it was all them, the energy that they had from the bench, the positivity that they kept the whole game,” Nicolas added. “I couldn’t have asked for more.”
Brooke Kurasaki, the former head coach’s daughter, has been rock solid through the adversity.
“We’re still here together as a team. We play for each other, said Kurasaki, who had seven steals. ”We switched to a zone and that changed the momentum. I’m happy, but the job’s not done. We know we can compete with (Campbell) and tonight we just proved that. Everybody contributed whether it was defense or rebounds or assists.”
Kurasaki kept the struggling Trojans in the game early on, a classic floor general.
“It’s next man up. Shania (Wilson) is hurt and we can’t do anything about that, so it’s next man up. The underclassmen are really stepping up,” she said.
The visiting Sabers were virtually flawless in the first two minutes. After Sotelo hit a 3 from the left wing, Campbell led 7-0. Campbell’s 2-1-2 fullcourt press forced the home team in to 10 first-half turnovers. Mililani managed to tie it at 10 early in the second quarter on a baseline floater by Kurasaki, but Campbell led at halftime, 17-14.
The Sabers then roared to a 9-0 run to start the second half. After Kamai Lei Ringor drove for a tough layup, Cayden Parado scored inside on a pass from Charissa Curnan. Sotelo scored on a left-handed layup, and after Parado also drove for a lefty bucket, Campbell had a commanding 26-14 lead.
Mililani called time out with 2:56 to go in the third quarter.
The first sign of trouble for the Sabers came on Kawamata’s first bucket, a 3-pointer late in the third quarter.
Then, after the fourth quarter began, Sotelo went down with a leg cramp, then left the game.
Kawamata drove through the paint for a layup, and Amelia McDaniel hit a mid-range jumper from the wing. After Kawamata pulled up off the dribble for a 3-pointer, the Trojans were within two points. She sank a mid-range shot from the right wing a minute later on a feed from Kurasaki, pulling Mililani within 30-29 with 1:25 left.
Parado led Campbell with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Sotelo finished with nine points and eight rebounds despite constant leg cramps in the fourth quarter.
