Waianae’s Furtado keeps on scoring

A few weeks into the regular season, Sonest Furtado is on a scoring run.

The Waianae soccer standout has already scored 13 of her team’s 18 goals, and the Seariders are 4-0 in the rugged Oahu Interscholastic Association West. No other player in the OIA or Interscholastic League of Honolulu has scored more than nine goals. The closest is Moanalua’s versatile Storm Kenui, who has found the net nine times for Na Menehune (4-0).

Most teams, particularly the powerhouses of the ILH and OIA, have too much depth to develop a hero-ball type of scoring offense.

But after four matches, the Seariders are depending heavily on Furtado with the meat of the schedule lining up.

Punahou works on pushing it up

It’s tough to say the Punahou boys basketball team has become a Honolulu version of Paul Westhead‘s Loyola-Marymount seven-seconds-or-less teams.

Maybe the Buffanblu, who scored 72 on Kapolei, 74 on Farrington and 86 on Kahuku, are more like a Grinnell College system. Five in, five out, 15 players get on the court before halftime, sometimes before the first quarter ends.

For coach Darren Matsuda, the prospect of suiting up so many quality players could have presented a dilemma. Instead, the Buffanblu are getting in transition offense within a few seconds, the ball flying up the sideline. More often than not, the sprinting Buffanblu catch defenders jogging and the result is a wide-open 3 from the corner.

For now, Punahou isn’t launching just to play crazy ball. But the strategy gets the deep Buffanblu more possessions. With their fullcourt press in effect, they had fresh legs from beginning to end against Farrington. That turned a close 20-16 first-quarter lead into a 41-17 game midway through the second quarter.

Punahou’s second and third teams are that good.

The only time during the three-day Na Menehune ILH-OIA Challenge that Punahou dropped the press was in the final quarter against Kahuku, when the lead was 75-33.