Hanalani guard Kainoa Souza-Chaves went into halftime of Saturday’s playoff game with Le Jardin with two points and facing perhaps his final 16 minutes of high school basketball.

The senior came out of the locker room and helped make sure the end wouldn’t come just yet.

Souza-Chaves scored 15 of his game-high 21 points in the third quarter to lead Hanalani to a 64-38 win over Le Jardin at Damien’s gym, helping the Royals secure the Interscholastic League of Honolulu’s second and final berth in the Division II state tournament.

“I really got into him at halftime,” first-year Hanalani head coach Keoni Haole said. “He’s a senior — this could have been his last game and he really took that upon himself.”

Hanalani will join St. Francis as the ILH’s representatives in the eight-team Division II tournament that begins Thursday. The Royals last qualified for the state tournament in 2009, and this year’s berth comes a season after they endured a three-win campaign in 2011.

“We put in a lot of work in the offseason and during the season and we came a long way,” said Haole, a P.E. teacher at Mililani. “We used that a lot as motivation, to come from pretty much the bottom to getting a chance to play in the state tournament.”

Souza-Chaves gave the Royals the opportunity to add to their turnaround season with his third-quarter explosion. With Hanalani clinging to a 21-19 lead at halftime, Souza-Chaves hit a driving shot 24 seconds into the period. He then scored 13 of the Royals’ next 15 points, capping the run by knocking down a 3-pointer from the right side and making a baseline jumper on consecutive possessions to stretch Hanalani’s lead to 38-22 with 1:30 left in the quarter.

“First half I wasn’t really doing too well,” Souza-Chaves said. “Coach just told me to attack and keep going.”

Hanalani held Le Jardin to three points in the quarter until freshman Alec Macleod hit a 3-pointer from just inside midcourt at the buzzer. Hanalani led

40-25 entering the fourth period and maintained control through the final buzzer.

Forward Christian Peterson finished with 14 points and eight rebounds for Hanalani. Pomi Milton and Jesse Tory added nine points each.

The result ended Le Jardin’s deepest run in the ILH season, as the Bulldogs came within a win of a state tournament appearance.

“Very optimistic for the future,” coach and athletic director Reed Olaso said. “We just have to keep grinding away, keep it going and this was a great run.”

For Hanalani, the boys state tournament berth comes two weeks after the school rallied behind its girls team, which won three games in the D-II state tournament to finish fifth.

“We’ve got good energy at the school right now,” Haole said. “We were definitely motivated before that happened, but even more now that the girls did that.”

Trent Park fired in 25 points as the Warriors broke open a tight game in the third quarter to beat the Raiders in the ILH Division
I-AA final.
Brandon Kaiura scored a team-high 14 for ‘Iolani.