Senior guard Sabrina Angle hit a free throw with 10.1 seconds left in overtime to seal a 31-27 win in the OIA Red championship game against Kaimuki before a frenzied crowd of about 600 at Farrington’s Richard Kitamura Fieldhouse.
After 35 years of girls basketball in Hawaii, there is a purple reign on the hoops hardwood.
“It’s so big. Even the boys basketball program is rooting for us. Everybody wanted one banner for us before we leave,” said Angle, who finished with one of her lowest scoring outputs of the season at four points.
But she came through in the clutch.
“I just had to focus and block out the crowd,” Angle said.
It was a peak experience for the senior-heavy Chargers and coach Mike Morton, who recently announced his retirement effective after this season, his 11th as head coach. Pearl City (18-5) will draw a first-round bye at the state tournament, which tips off on Tuesday.
“It’s unbelievable. Nobody believed in us but us, just Pearl City people. Our girls worked so hard,” Morton said.
Tiari Walker hustled for 11 points, and Dani Magana pulled down 11 rebounds as the Chargers won the battle of the boards 26-17. Magana returned in the fourth quarter after suffering a knee bruise earlier in the game.
“Her knee went into my knee and I felt something pop. But the fact that we wanted to win this as a team was motivation for me. Nothing could stop us,” said Magana, a 5-foot-9 senior.
After the teams defeated each other during the double-elimination tournament, the biggest adjustment came from Morton, who switched his team out of its persistent man-to-man defense in favor of a 2-3 matchup zone. The Chargers hadn’t used a zone since preseason.
“We wanted to stop their shooting from the outside. We always had that zone in our pocket. We didn’t want them driving to the basket on us,” Morton said.
The playoffs were bittersweet for Kaimuki, which was 13-0 in regular-season play.
“We didn’t shoot as well as we did the other night,” Kaimuki coach Mona Fa‘asoa said, referring to Kaimuki’s 60-47 win over the Chargers two nights earlier. “Our posts were getting doubled and they kept drifting out. Pearl City did a great job. I can’t be mad when our girls are playing hard.”
Kaimuki (21-6) responded with 31 percent shooting from the field (11-for-36), including just 3-for-15 from the arc.
Ashley Savusa had seven points and seven rebounds, a far cry from her 27-point, nine-board performance on Thursday.
“One team had to lose. We had a lot of missed opportunities. We didn’t capitalize on their turnovers,” Savusa said. “But we’ve got to keep our heads high. We’ve still got states. Props to Pearl City. They shut me down.”
The game was a slow-paced, intense defensive battle — precisely the tempo Morton has favored against the athletic Bulldogs.
Morton used just six players in the game.
The Chargers shot just 32 percent from the field (10-for-31), didn’t hit a 3 and committed 15 turnovers. Yet, late-game execution with twins Sabrina and Shawna Angle, and Adrienne Jean Sylva — their guard trio — was at its best in the overtime period.
With both teams in matchup zones, the first half was a grind with just 35 field-goal attempts combined by the teams. Pearl City led 13-11 at the break.
At Farrington
Pearl City (18-5) 4 9 8 2 8 — 31
Kaimuki (21-6) 6 5 9 3 4 — 27
PC—Sabrina Angle 4, Adrienne Jean Sylva 6, Shawna Angle 5, Dani Magana 5, Tiari Walker 11.
KAIMUKI—Canny Aikau 2, Krysta Yasui 5, Ashley Savusa 7, Keana Paez 7, Shantaeus Ramos-Dias 0, Dejah Fa‘asoa 6.
3-point goals—Pearl City none, Kaimuki 3 (Fa‘asoa 2, Yasui).
