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Girls' Basketball: Pratt goes for 30 points, 18 boards, No. 7 Kaiser tops Kalani
Posted at 11:29 PM
The Kaiser Cougars are taking no prisoners in their question for an OIA playoff berth. Please kokua by visiting our affiliate partners. Mahalo!
By Paul Honda HONOLULU—The bottlenecked traffic better known as the O’ahu Interscholastic Association East Division is nowhere to make a mistake. That’s why the Kaiser Cougars arrived at Kalani with an exact sense of purpose Thursday afternoon. By evening, Sharde Pratt’s 30 points and 18 rebounds led Kaiser to a 65-46 victory at Earl C. Holmer Gymnasium. “It’s a confidence builder,” longtime Kaiser coach Lisa Mann said of Pratt. “She’s got the ability to do it. Plus, we worked the ball to her.” Sophomore Kehau Bangay added 12 points, mostly on baseline jump shots. Point guard Shera Yamamoto added eight points. Kaiser, ranked No. 7 in the HondaReport.com Girls’ Basketball Top Ten, improved to 5-1 in league play. “These are our rivals, so there was no taking them easy,” Pratt said. Only the top four teams in the division will qualify for the OIA playoffs. Last year, the number was six, and more than last year, the East is extremely competitive. “We really want to get into the playoffs,” Pratt said. Richline Batoon scored 16 points and Tamari Miyashiro added 11 for Kalani, which dropped to 2-3. “Everything went wrong. We were colder than cold,” Kalani head coach Daniel Kahalioumi said. “We told the girls, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Games like this don’t happen a lot, where we have more than one shooter who is cold.”
Kalani got a good look at Kaiser during the Lady Falcon preseason tournament. “They couldn’t run their offense back then,” Kahalioumi recalled. “Sharde did really well. Give them credit. We’ve been playing hard, but couldn’t finish. Tonight, we couldn’t even get started.” Kalani, a young team with a wealth of perimeter players, could not contend with the much taller Cougars in the paint. Kaiser dominated the boards with a 47-12 rebounding edge. Pratt scored all of her points in the paint, mostly on entry passes to the low post. The versatile junior also hustled for a few fastbreak layups. Kalani opened in a man-to-man defense, but switched to a 2-3 zone after Miyashiro picked up two early personal fouls. The Lady Falcons were still within 7-4 after Keri Hee hustled for a putback. Pratt came alive late in the first quarter, scoring on a power move down low and a pair of follow layups. After Bangay sank a 15-footer on the baseline, Kaiser led 15-4 going into the second quarter. Kalani went to a full-court press when the second quarter started, but Pratt scored uncontested three times in a row as Kaiser continued its run of 14-consecutive points. That gave the Cougars a 21-4 lead with 6:01 left in the half. Kaiser extended the lead to 22 points, and led at intermission, 33-16. The Lady Falcons hustled, and after Miyashiro came up with a steal and sank two foul shots, Kalani trailed 41-26 with 10 seconds left in the third quarter. Pratt, who had 24 points and 17 rebound entering the fourth quarter, returned to the game along with Kaiser’s starting unit. The Cougars went on an 8-0 blitz for a 23-point lead. Pratt left the game for good with her team ahead 51-28 and 5:02 remaining. Center Kilioe Aliifua left the game, as well, with 3:41 to play and the Cougars up 55-28. It wasn’t a flawless performance by Kaiser. Pratt missed her first five free-throw attempts, and the Cougars committed 19 turnovers. Pratt, a 5-foot-8 junior, doesn’t have to score to be effective. She has a variety of skills that are valuable to the Cougars on both ends of the floor. Scoring 30, however, will draw more attention than usual now. “I rather that they try and shut me down,” Pratt said. “Then I can show what I’ve got.” It was the first meeting between Mann and Kahalioumi as head coaches. Kahalioumi, who was an assistant to Mike Zane for 14 seasons before taking the helm, attended school with Mann at University Lab. Please kokua by visiting our affiliate partners. Mahalo!
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