Pilot program. Experiment. Mostly good results.

At the Lahaina Civic Center, Lahainaluna edged Maryknoll 61-57 in a thriller on Saturday. The quarterfinal drew 1,400 in paid attendance, easily the biggest crowd of the tourney so far in the Division I portion of the Hawaiian Airlines/HHSAA Girls Basketball State Championships. Attendance would’ve been higher if not for a competing boys basketball game involving Lahainaluna, and an accident on the highway that created a delay and forced some fans to turn around and go back east.

The atmosphere at Lahaina was electric, Maryknoll coach Chico Furtado said. He still believes a traveling team, like Maryknoll, should get a full day in between games to make the trip rather than play on back-to-back nights on two islands.

"I wanted that, too," HHSAA executive director Chris Chun said, referring to a Thursday/Saturday schedule rather than Friday/Saturday. "But the regional committee wanted back-to-back (dates)."

At Blaisdell Arena, two D-I quarterfinal games as well as a D-II title matchup drew 1,100 fans. Chun was a bit surprised and pleased with that turnout.

Meanwhile, the Konawaena-Mililani game at Kealakehe High drew 482 in another thriller — won by the visiting Trojans 54-51. But the HHSAA said actual paid attendance was just 230. That was a stunner for the HHSAA, since the Wildcats have won four of the last seven state titles.

On the same night, a boys senior-night game between host Konawaena and HPA, currently the leaders of D-I and D-II in the BIIF, easily outdrew the girls state-tourney game.

Some fans cited the distance to Kealakehe, which is roughly 17 miles from Konawaena. Why wasn’t the boys game changed to an earlier time or a different day, like Friday? In one explanation, the league apparently did not want both Hawaii Prep and Konawaena to have only one day of rest after their Wednesday games.

"Once the schedule is approved by athletic directors, if a school wants a change, it has to be agreed on by the two schools’ athletic directors," BIIF executive director Lyle Crozier said. "I don’t know if they talked. They could’ve changed the date or moved it up earlier."

Crozier was an AD at Konawaena for nearly two decades before becoming the league chief. Because of the distance from that campus to Kealakehe, he would’ve preferred a straight-out host site at the Wildcats’ gym. In that case, the gym would probably have filled up close to capacity (1,300).

"Maybe they should allow home teams to host a regional. That should be part of winning a championship," he said.

That’s a touchy subject for some. Furtado noted that Lahainaluna plays its home games at the Lahaina Civic Center, essentially making its state-tournament quarterfinal game on Saturday another home game. Technically, however, the HHSAA recognizes an off-campus site as neutral.

"But is it really fair?" Furtado asked.

Crozier believes that if there hadn’t been a Konawaena-HPA boys game on Saturday, attendance for the Konawaena-Mililani girls state-tourney game would’ve doubled to about 1,000.

Interestingly, before Konawaena and Hilo met for the BIIF girls title two weeks ago, Hilo had a contingency plan in place. Like Konawaena, Hilo’s boys team had a Saturday game, as well.

"If Hilo (girls) had won, they already had plans to move the boys game (against Kealakehe) to the daytime (on Saturday,)" Crozier said.

Instead, Konawaena edged Hilo 46-45 in the girls league final.

Still, Chun said the low turnout for the Konawaena girls game is not a game-changer. On the whole, this year’s quarterfinal round drew more than 2,800 fans at the three sites — far more than quarterfinal rounds of past years that were played only on Oahu.

In the previous format, the quarterfinals were played on Wednesday nights at two neutral Oahu sites, normally drawing less than 1,000 fans combined.

"I still like the format," Chun said. "I still support it."

Lahainaluna drew well. Konawaena, not so well.

"It just makes it harder when we go to HIADA (athletic directors annual conference)," Chun said. "And people say we shouldn’t travel to the neighbor islands for the state tournament."

The semifinal round will be played at McKinley on Friday. Top-seeded Lahainaluna will meet unseeded Hilo at 5 p.m., followed by third-seeded Punahou and unseeded Mililani at 7 p.m.

The championship game and third-place matchup will be held at Blaisdell on Saturday.