Clash of ILH basketball unbeatens tonight
Advertiser Staff
The two heavyweights of Hawai'i high school girls basketball get into the ring tonight for what promises to be classic contest.
Kamehameha and Punahou, both 5-0 in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, meet at 7:30 at Punahou's Hemmeter Field House.
Kamehameha has won the previous two state titles and 43 of its past 44 games. Punahou, fresh from a successful spring-break trip to Southern California, is 12-0 overall this year and ranked No. 1 in the HawaiiSportsNetwork.com poll of coaches and media.
Either Kamehameha or Punahou has played in the past 13 state championship games, and won 10 of them. In 1999, Kam beat Punahou for the title.
This year they are dominating opponents again, winning their five ILH games by an average of 26 points.
Although Kamehameha graduated three all-state players last year, Punahou coach Shelley Kahuanui Fey says she sees no weaknesses in the 2001 edition.
"They still have a lot of players who are very confident," Fey said. "They were very aggressive, very strong inside, very athletic, and ran really well," when she scouted them against 'Iolani. "This will be a really good test."
Neither team has a dominant scorer this season; Becky Hogue averages about 11 per game to lead Punahou and Megan Ching 10 for Kamehameha.
Ashley De Silva, a dangerous 3-point threat for Kam, has not played since breaking a wrist in a car accident earlier this year.
Punahou's offense is run by all-state point guard Milia Macfarlane, who signed last fall with University of Hawai'i. The Buffanblu have 10 players, including five starters, back from last year's team that finished third at state.
The ILH is composed of private schools so it is not affected by the public school teachers strike.
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GETTING IT STRAIGHT
• Baseball: Incorrect OIA East won-lost records were published this week for four teams because of errors in inputting results into standings. Kaiser is the division leader with 3 victories and a tie. Kalaheo and Kailua share second at 3-1 and Castle is a shade behind them at 3-1-1.
• Basketball: The record of Mililani's girls basketball team is 3-2. The description of the Trojans' "first loss of the season" in Wednesday's Advertiser was incorrect. Radford's record also was reported incorrectly; it is 3-1.
• Basketball II: The Iolani-Kamehameha basketball score reported in yesterday's Advertiser as a Varsity Division II game actually was in Intermediate Division I game.
