With less than a minute left in Friday night’s game at The Barn, Seabuary Hall’s Reynald Sorayama nailed a three-pointer to cap off a 73-23 victory over the Molokai High boys’ basketball team. The Spartans couldn’t miss from beyond the three-point line and rode their hot shooting streak to a pair of wins over the previously undefeated Farmers last weekend.

“[Seabury] shot the ball really well all weekend,” Molokai coach Lee DeRouin said. “They are good shooters and they are good basketball players.”

Senior Herbert Antolin (5) and junior Ryan Rapanot wait for an inbounds pass during Saturday’s game at The Barn.The Spartan shooters picked up right where they left off on Saturday when junior Phelan Pagano started the game with another basket from beyond the arc. Seabury started the game with four straight three-pointers, but this time around Molokai was able to close the gap.

The Farmers’ big men Ryan Rapanot and Kamakana Duvauchelle-Andrade fought for open looks down low and kept things close in the first quarter. A pair of back-to-back baskets from seniors Julien Bumatay and Alvin Ringor pulled Molokai within three points with five minutes left in the half.

“It opened up a little bit, but it was still pretty physical down there. We just worked on keeping our composure and keeping our heads in the back,” Duvauchelle-Andrade said.

Duvauchelle-Andrade finished with six points and Rapanot led the way with nine in Saturday’s game. Seabury eventually pulled away in the second half and held on for a 59-28 victory.

Senior Herbert Antolin was the leading scorer on Friday’s Senior Night with eight points.

“You win some and you lose some, but Senior Night is always a good night to remember,” Antolin said.

He and his fellow seniors – Ringor, Bumatay and Kawaiola Kalipi – had to deal with the emotions of their last home game as well as the butterflies of the season’s first home game. The weekend match-up with Seabury was Molokai’s only two games at The Barn this season.

“It’s hard to open up your first home game during the last weekend of January, especially against one of the best teams in the division like that,” DeRouin said.

The pair of losses dropped the Farmers record to 4-2 in the Maui Interscholastic League (MIL). They finish their regular season this weekend with a pair of games at Hana.


Girls’ Basketball
The Lady Farmers also took on Seabury Hall in a two-game series this weekend. Molokai was victorious on the road winning 54-21 Friday night and 49-36 the following afternoon. The match-up featured the MIL Div. II’s only two undefeated teams. Molokai improved to 6-0 in the conference with the wins.

The Farmers, who have gotten used to blowing teams out of the gym, had their closest game of the regular season on Saturday. Seabury trailed by only five points at halftime before Molokai came out of the locker room on a 12-0 run and never looked back.

“It always good to have more competition,” said Molokai coach Michael Hooper. “They had a couple of girls who could score a little bit more than usual.”

Seabury’s Sierra Jacob had 18 points and Taylor Rudow added ten, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the Farmers’ own scoring tandem. Senior Danna-Lynn Hooper-Juario led all scorers with 24 and junior Kalei Adolpho finished with 18 points of her own.

However, Hooper said it was once again tough play from the supporting cast early on that allowed Hooper-Juario and Adolpho to get open looks. Senior Jolenta Duvauchelle hit three straight buckets in the first quarter to get things rolling for Molokai.

“We are really improving our depth,” Hooper said. “This weekend we had all 12 of our girls on the court, that’s pretty good against on of the better teams like Seabury.”

The Farmers return to The Barn this weekend for their final regular season games of the season against Hana. A win in either of the two remaining games would clinch the MIL regular season title for Molokai, but Hooper said there is only one championship the team is interested in.

“Those girls got one thing in mind. If were not playing for the state championship at the end of the season, it will be a disappointment,” he said.

This year’s team is the exact same group of girls that won last year’s Div. II state championship. This weekend will be the last time to see the girls play on Molokai. The team will honor its five seniors on Friday night with a “black out,” where all fans are asked to wear black.

Wrestling
A pair of Molokai wrestlers also stayed undefeated this weekend by winning their respective weight classes for the third time in a row. Junior Kevin Dudoit continued to dominate the 135-pound division and sophomore Charisse Manley once again won the 130-pound weight class.

Manley won the MIL championship in her weight class last season and looks poised to do so again as she continues to improve each week. Last weekend, she pinned an opponent who had previously given her very close matches in the second period. 

“She’s a little bit less timid when she goes out there this year,” head coach Randy Manley said. “She knows where she is and what the score is and can really control things from there. Right now she just has to keep working on her mental strategy.”

Other Molokai wrestlers continued to close the gap in their own weight classes. Rose Akaka won the 125-pound division for her first time this year. On the boys’ side, Simon Blair was only two points away from claiming his first overall win of the year.

“He lost to Lahainaluna’s top guy, but it was only a two-point match where last week the same guy pinned him in the first period,” Manley said. “We had some similar final results this week, but actually we are getting closer in a lot of key areas.”

The Farmers have one regular season meet remaining before the MIL Championship. They will travel to Maui again this weekend for a duel-match format tournament with teams facing off head-to-head rather than in a round robin. Manley said the wrestlers are excited to see where they stand against some of the other teams in the league.

Soccer
The girls’ soccer team completed the trio of Seabury match-ups this weekend losing a pair of games at home 4-1 and 5-2. Seabury clinched the Div. II title with the win on Friday afternoon and Molokai dropped to 0-14 as its season came to a close on Saturday.

The Spartans jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first half of Friday’s game thanks to four goals from four different Seabury players. However, things could have been much uglier for Molokai without the ten saves made in the first by goalkeeper Susan Smith.

“Susan is probably the most improved out of anyone on our team,” said Molokai coach Scott Shelton. “She had never played goalie at the start of the season and she has done really well.”

Smith stopped a handful of breakaways from point blank distance and also made a pair of diving saves during a busy first half.

Junior captain Chelsea Sakamoto scored Molokai’s only goal late in the second half when she weaved through a series of Spartan defenders and punched one in from the right side. Sakamoto, the team’s leading scorer this season, added another goal in Saturday’s game on a free kick. Junior Francine Feig who played defense this season also added a goal during Saturday’s loss.

Shelton said all in all he was happy with the girls’ improvement throughout the season, but thought the team suffered from a lack of dedication.

“We had trouble getting girls to practice on a regular basis. We had fun, but I can imagine what it would have been like if we had everyone showing up all the time,” he said.

Swimming
The eight-member Molokai swim team finished their season last weekend, competing in the MIL Championship meet at the Kihei Aquatic Center. All eight members competed, but sophomore Lawaia Aalona was the only swimmer to reach the finals in his two individual events.

Sophomore Emily Spires sprints off the block after sophomore Chelsea Simon finishes her 50 yards during the 200-yard freestyle relay.Friday’s evening meet was accompanied by a downpour, but the Molokai swimmers didn’t miss a beat. Aalona competed in the 50-yard freestyle, dropping a half second from 25.06 to 24.59, and in the 100-yard freestyle, keeping steady at 56.63. He moved on to Saturday’s finals in both events.

“Lawaia swam some pretty remarkable races,” Ford said. “He dropped time between this and the [previous] meets, and between prelims and finals.”

Aalona came within a quarter of a second from having the chance to qualify for the state tournament in the 50-yard freestyle, again improving his time to 24.33 and coming in fourth place overall.

“I’m proud that I came in fourth, [but] sad that I didn’t get a medal,” he said.

Freshman Lesley Escobar finished her 100-yard backstroke at 1:44.06, winning her heat and just missing the finals. She was a second alternate for the finals race.

“It was exciting because she had no experience in competition at the beginning of the season,” said head coach Jessie Ford. “I’m very proud of her.”

Escobar agreed that she had improved a lot in the past three months.

“I feel proud of myself, because I made first [in my heat],” she said.

Saturday afternoon started on a warmer note, as all six girls and Aalona prepared to race their final events of the season. Because only eight teams competed in the championships, all relays were raced on Saturday – giving the Molokai girls one more chance.

“They all swam great, all swam to their current potential,” Ford said.

The Molokai kane swimmers finished the season in sixth place, but didn’t place in the wahine division. Ford and the swimmers are already thinking about next season, and a potential club team by summertime.

“They’ve made so much progress in three months, now all they need to improve is more training and development of details,” Ford said.