It’ll be a classic crosstown rivalry between Hilo and Waiakea for the BIIF Division I championship, an intense title matchup that has been missing for a while.
The Warriors overpowered Kamehameha 73-27 while Hilo defeated Konawaena 48-39 in the BIIF Division I semifinals on Tuesday night at Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium.
The Warriors (12-1) and Vikings (8-5) will play for the BIIF Division I championship at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Hilo Civic.
“They’re a great team, well-coached and have a great leader in Kiai Apele,” Hilo coach Bruce Ferreira said. “It’ll be a dogfight, but we’re going to play as hard as we can. They’ve got All-BIIF players all over the place.
“But I believe in my team. The boys have to believe in themselves. But I think they’re finding themselves.”
The last time the two met for the title was in 2010, when Hilo won and finished as the BIIF runner-up the next two seasons.
The Warriors are an experienced and versatile team, able to score in a variety of ways: transition layups, 3-pointers and points in the paint.
“We have to stop their transition baskets and block out because they’re bigger than us,” Ferreira said.
The Vikings are young with just one senior starter but showed a lot of moxie to eliminate the Wildcats (7-6), who hurt themselves with three turnovers in the last two minutes.
Waiakea 73, Kamehameha 27
The game got lopsided in the second quarter when Waiakea outscored Kamehameha 24-2. Waiakea kept scoring in transition, the one thing Kamehameha wanted to stop.
Kamehameha couldn’t prevent Waiakea from running and scoring and worse yet couldn’t get any entry passes to its bigs, Austin Kaleo and Teva Reynolds. Kaupena Yasso and Reynolds had six points each while Kaleo finished with three points.
Kamehameha had a lot of its shots contested and had a miserable night from the floor, shooting just 24 percent (10 of 41), including 3 of 13 from 3-point range.
Waiakea had balanced scoring and burned the nets at a 56 percent (31 of 55) clip. Rekky Prudencio led the way with 19 points on 7 of 10 shooting, Apele had 17 pints, Peter Suiaunoa and Keegan Scanlan added 11 points each.
Apele had a brilliant ball-sharing game with 10 assists and just two turnovers. Waiakea had 17 assists and nine turnovers while Kamehameha had four assists and 18 giveaways.
The game started off ice cold for Waiakea, which missed it first eight shots. Then Waiakea started to beat Kamehameha in transition down the court. Apele dished an assist to Peter Suiaunoa and to Soares on the next possession.
It was tied 5-5, and Kaupena Yasso buried a 3-pointer before the buzzer to cut Waiakea’s lead to 11-10. That was as close as it would get.
Waiakea opened the third period with a 13-0 run for a 24-10 lead with 3:22 left, and from there things turned into a runaway.
“In the second quarter, we took away their dribble-penetration,” Waiakea coach Paul Lee said. “We missed a lot of shots early, but then we started to get defensive stops and transition baskets.”
Kamehameha 10 2 11 4 — 27
Waiakea 11 24 23 15 — 73
Hilo 48, Konawaena 39
With 3:15 left, Hilo led 37-29 and coach Bruce Ferreira made a key substitution. He took out his lone big, Jonah Tominaga, and had five ball-handlers on the floor: Kaukahi Alameda, Guyson Ogata, Mason Galima, Rayson Padilla, and RJ Solmerin.
“We like to use that set to spread the court, handle the ball and not turn it over,” Ferreira said. “But we have to get back on defense. The tough thing is rebounding. But I guess it’s give and take.”
From there, the Vikings scored two baskets off giveaways. Padilla had a layup for a 41-35 lead with 1:34 left, and Galima soared in for another layup for a 46-37 lead with 19 seconds to play.
Padilla scored 25 points on 8 of 12 shooting, Alameda had 10 points, and Galima added nine points for Hilo, which shot 43 percent (16 of 37) from the field, including 5 of 12 from beyond the arc.
The Vikings buried just enough free throws, 11 of 22; Konawaena went 11 of 15 from the line and 0 of 7 from 3-point distance.
Ethan Neru scored 16 points on 6 of 12 shooting, and Kahinu Holzgrove added 13 points off the bench for the Wildcats (7-6), who shot 42 percent (14 of 33) from the field.
The first half was marked by inaccurate shooting. Hilo made just 30 percent while Konawaena shot 36 percent from the field.
After Padilla sank a layup to give the Vikings a 16-11 lead, the Wildcats scored eight straight points, capped by Holzgrove’s putback to flip the score to 19-16, in Kona’s favor.
Alameda made two free throws to put the Vikings ahead 19-18 at the break.
Padilla scored 12 points in the first half. He shot 5 of 7 from the field, including 2 of 4 from beyond the arc.
Hilo 12 6 11 19 — 48
Konawaena 6 13 8 12 — 39