Kailua rolls past Mililani, 57-36, for first OIA DI title since 1982

By Wes Nakama

Kailua has a long history as a good “basketball town,” but Kailua High School also had a long, 43-year drought between OIA Division I boys hoops championships.

That drought finally ended in resounding fashion Wednesday night, when the Surfirders rolled past Mililani, 57-36 to win their first league crown since 1982. A festive crowd of about 750 at McKinley’s Student Council Gym watched Kailua jump out to a quick 10-0 lead in the first three minutes and never look back to improve to 24-4 overall and complete a perfect 13-0 run through the OIA season and earn the league’s top seed and first-round bye in next week’s HHSAA State Championships. Mililani fell to 21-6 and 11-3 and will play host to league rival Kahuku (18-9, 11-2) in Monday’s first round.

Kailua did win an OIA Division II championship in 2013, under current head coach Walter Marciel. But its previous OIA DI championship came way back in 1982, coached by the legendary Louis “Koko” Santos and led by All-State junior forward George Puou, who became a standout player at San Jose State.

“The kids know (the history) … but we didn’t talk about that in the locker room,” Marciel said. “Tonight I talked about, ‘It’s all about us, it’s this team.’ And it showed at the beginning of the game.”

It certainly did. Nainoa Hirasuna-Kenny started things quickly by draining a 3-pointer from the left wing just 30 seconds in, then Joseph Bieniek followed with a jump hook and 3-pointer in the next minute. Skyler Unten swished a mid-range jumper from the left wing to make it 10-0 with 5:39 still remaining in the first period, forcing the Trojans to burn their first timeout.

“To see our guys in the locker room before the game, I look at eyes … and guys weren’t sitting down, they were constantly moving, they were focused,” Marciel said. “I knew we were ready to play the game tonight.”

Ezekiel Virtudes finally got Mililani on the board with a driving layup to make it 10-2 at the five-minute mark, but Unten answered with another 3-pointer to start a 7-2 run capped by Maddox Pung’s 3-pointer to extend the lead to 17-4 with 2:14 remaining in the first period. The Surfriders took a stunning 22-6 lead into the second.

“We wanted to come into the game and theoretically punch them in the mouth — but not literally, you know what I mean?” said Pung, a junior wing who contributed seven points, seven rebounds and one block. “We’ve been having slow starts all season, so we wanted to get a real fast start and once we got that, we took it, we ran with it. We had a great game.”

The Trojans could only get as close as 26-15 on Roman Gabriel’s layup with 1:21 left in the second period, but Bieniek responded with a free throw to help Kailua take a 27-15 halftime lead. Things only got worse for Mililani in the third period, as the Surfriders outscored the Trojans 23-10 to take a 50-25 score into the fourth.

“(The Surfriders) definitely wanted it, you could tell they wanted it more than we did, and it showed by their energy,” Mililani coach Garrett Gabriel said. “Coming out and hitting their first five or six shots, if I’m not mistaken, that kind of put us behind the eight ball and then we had to chase from then on. And they continued to play well, continued to shoot it well, so that’s where it was a struggle for us to catch up.

“They probably played their best game, and we played our worst game. It was just uncharacteristic of our kids to play that way, but credit to (the Surfriders), they were a big part of it. They hit shots, and then we started forcing and doing things that we normally don’t do. We couldn’t get anything going, they scouted us well and did a good job.”

Unten scored 14 points to lead Kailua, Hirasuna-Kenny added 11 points and Bieniek finished with 10 points and five boards. LeCedric Brown finished with a game-high 16 points to lead Mililani, but Gabriel — who had been averaging a team-high 18.8 points per game — was limited to that one layup.

“Roman is a great player, he’s fantastic, (so) the goal tonight was to hold him to one shot — he’s gonna miss a few, but make sure he doesn’t get that rebound (and putback),” Marciel said. “We had multiple guys guarding their key guys, to take away their penetration. Mililani is a great penetrating team, and they get to the (free throw) line a lot, too. So to hold Roman the way our guys did, I’m proud of them.”

Marciel, who has lived and coached in Kailua the past five decades, said bringing home the championship over the Pali means a lot to the school and beyond.

“This is awesome for our program and for the Kailua community,” said Marciel, who was a longtime assistant coach at Kalaheo in the 1990’s and 2000’s. “It’s these guys’ time — Maddox, and Dylan (Kunz) and Sebastian (Ledda) and Skyler have been with me since freshman year. They really wanted it tonight.”

In the end, the 43-year Division I title drought just made the victory even sweeter.

“It feels great, in Kailua it feels like everybody knows each other, we all played at Enchanted Lake Park when we were little kids,” Pung said. “We’re all from Kailua, we all grew up playing together, we’re rooted not recruited. So it feels great to bring this home.”