Monday Morning MIL: With 1999 championship players in the stands, Maui High girls basketball team clinches regular season title, state berth

KAHULUI — Twenty-five years ago, Maren Kanekoa, Sanna Kauhane, Mahie Atay and Rachel Kondo stood on the basketball court together as the only Maui High girls basketball team to win a Maui Interscholastic League title.

On Friday, they reunited on the court to watch their alma mater run their MIL record to 10-0 to claim the regular season title and clinch a berth in the Heide & Cook/HHSAA Division I state tournament.

The Sabers played an intra-squad game on senior night after Lahainaluna forfeited the game due to recent injuries that left them with a lack of available players. The Maui High School pep band was in the jam-packed Izumi “Shine” Matsui Athletic Center and former boys and girls basketball coach Gilbert Silva was on the public address system as he normally is, but there were a couple out-of-the-norm circumstances as well.

Recently retired principal Jamie Yap and new principal Ty Ogasawara were honorary coaches — Yap for the blue team and Ogasawara for the white-clad Sabers.

Yap was instrumental in getting the 1999 Maui High championship foursome back to the school for senior night. Kondo and Kauhane were seniors on the 1999 team, Kanekoa was a junior and Atay was a freshman. At halftime, they were all honored.

“It’s surreal because they look extra young, it’s funny, and it’s surreal to think that at some point we were that age,” said Kondo, who lives in Ha’ikū and is the Emmy and Golden Globe award winner as a writer and producer for television series Shōgun. “I still feel inside that we are (still that age), to some degree, just with a lesser body.”

These Sabers still have work to do to match the 1999 team as MIL champions — Maui High will be the No. 1 seed for the Division I league tournament that takes place Jan. 25 for the fourth- vs. fifth-place game at the home of the fourth-place team and Jan. 27-29 at King Kekaulike Gym for the semifinals, final, and possible winner-take-all championship game.

Maui High would claim the title by winning the tournament or get another chance to do so if a winner-take-all championship game is necessary on Jan. 29. Kondo was unaware that her senior season Maui High team was the only girls basketball team in school history to claim an MIL title — they were coached by Stephen Cramer.

“For one, it’s great to learn that, and then two, the feeling that I got from the (current) girls reminded me of the camaraderie that we had way back when,” Kondo said. “We haven’t seen each other almost since then and we fell right back into it tonight. It was an especially bonded team and I think that our boundedness almost outweighed our talent. We worked together so well … familiarity and friendship, that counts for a lot.”

The foursome of former Sabers chatted to the current team before the game, a talk-story session that seemed to move both sides of the conversation.

“It was really cool, I felt really good and it made me realize how far me and my team can really go,” junior guard Naiara Bal said. “I feel like me and my team with the progress we’ve made so far and constantly working hard, it’s really showing. It would be really nice to win and I’m just excited to see how far we can go.”

Bal’s mother Crystal is a former player and coach for the Sabers and Gilbert Silva is her grandfather. Her grandmother Brenda Silva died on Oct. 2.

“Ever since I’ve been a young girl, I grew up in that gym,” Bal said. “I’m team bleed blue all the way. … I’ve been waiting for this moment. Every time I get on that court or in that gym I always see myself and think about how I would be in that gym with my papa and my mom. … The first thing that my papa said was that my grandma is always watching me.”

Atay transferred to Baldwin High School after playing on that 1999 Maui High basketball team — she was part of two state championship and one state runner-up soccer teams as a goalkeeper for the Bears and then enjoyed a stellar soccer career at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. Her father Carlton Atay was an assistant coach for the 1999 Sabers basketball team.

“I actually practiced with the Maui High varsity since eighth grade, not by choice — my dad would pick me up from school and brought me to practice,” said Atay, who works in humane animal education. “Working with and being a part of the team as a freshman, these are all like my older sisters for sure. I really liked our play and our style, honestly, we just dominated the courts.”

Kauhane, whose maiden name was Dioso, and Kondo were co-captains on the 1999 team — Kauhane works for a nonprofit that does educational outreach.

“I haven’t been back here since I graduated and Mahie and I have always had a relationship, but the other two I have not seen pretty much since,” Kauhane said. “So, it’s great to reconnect with them and it’s almost like we never left. Same thing all over again.”

Kanekoa is a school psychologist who also remembers the camaraderie the 1999 team displayed.

“Whether we were on the court or on the bench we were always trying to support each other, so we were pretty good friends,” Kanekoa said. “It is definitely weird to be back, and especially to be back with the ladies that I played basketball with. It is fun.”

Lahainaluna has won the last 19 MIL girls basketball titles, a streak that dates to 2005 and at one point included an all-sport MIL record of winning 164 league games in a row — Maui High was the league runner-up eight times in that string of Lunas championships.

Friday night was the final home basketball game for Sabers seniors Mareea Casio, Kyra Okuyama and Jada Dorst. The varsity roster has been expanded with the addition of some junior varsity players, but among the top 12 players there are two freshmen, five sophomores and two juniors.

“Honestly, we’ve never been in that situation before, so from a coaching standpoint it’s new territory,” Maui High head coach Victor Aguirre said. “It’s exciting for the school, it’s exciting for the girls. This team has really come together. Last year, they were really young and they took their bumps and bruises. This year, they have really grown.”

HJI’s “Monday Morning MIL” columns appear weekly on Monday mornings with updates on local sports in the Maui Interscholastic League and elsewhere around Maui County. Please send column ideas — anything having to do with sports in Maui County — as well as results and photos to rob@hjinow.org.