KAHULUI — Naiara Bal was born to play basketball for Maui High School.

Bal’s grandfather Gilbert Silva coached the Sabers for 20 years, from 2000 to 2020. Her mother Crystal Bal was a standout player for the Sabers and later an assistant coach on her father’s staff.

And now, Naiara Bal will leave a legacy of her own as the best player on the best team in the Maui Interscholastic League.

In her final MIL regular-season game at Lahainaluna on Friday night, the Maui High senior showed flashes of her remarkable basketball IQ all night long in a 55-31 win that moved the Sabers to 12-0 in MIL play. 

Bal finished with 11 points, second on the team to Tiffany Sana’s 13, and also had five assists, four rebounds and just one turnover. On her senior night at Maui High on Tuesday in a 53-11 win over the Lunas, who finished second in the MIL regular season at 9-3 with all three losses to the Sabers, Bal had a team-high 15 points, four rebounds, two assists and four steals.

Bal is the 13th-leading scorer in Division I statewide at 12.6 points per game and the second-leading scorer in the MIL behind Lahainaluna’s Honor Kaniho. The Sabers’ average winning score in 12 MIL games this regular season was 56-15.

The top-seeded Sabers play No. 4 King Kekaulike in the MIL tournament semifinals at 5:30 p.m. today at the Lahainaluna gym, while No. 2 Lahainaluna plays No. 3 Baldwin at 7 p.m. The winners play for the tournament title at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

There is the possibility of an overall MIL championship game or second-place game on Wednesday. The Lunas will be the runners-up if they beat Baldwin and lose to the Sabers in the tournament championship game. The Sabers can clinch just the third MIL title in girls basketball in school history with wins today and Tuesday.

For Bal, it’s one last chance to make a mark in the league she grew up in.

From a young age, she could be spotted on the floor at the Izumi “Shine” Matsui Athletic Center on the Kahului campus, dribbling and shooting during every available moment during halftimes and between games for the Maui High boys and girls teams while her grandfather coached and other family members were in the stands. That included her grandmother Brenda Silva, who died in October 2024, as well as her mom and her dad Bradley Lanakila Bal. 

Naiara Bal is the oldest of Crystal and Bradley Bal’s six children and she is the only senior on the Sabers, who have eight juniors, three sophomores and two freshmen on the roster. 

Naiara Bal said being the only senior on a team that has won 26 MIL games in a row — last season the Sabers won their second league title ever and first since 1999 — is similar to being big sister to brothers Preston, 13, Waylon, 11, Beauson, 5, and Mason, 2, and sister Lanaia, 9.

“The team is very young,” she said. “So I try to be a role model, a leader to help them out and grow.”

She is set to continue her career at Pacific University, an NCAA Division III school in Forest Grove, Ore., in the fall. She also got an offer from NCAA Division I school Portland State.

Silva said he never let his granddaughter forget to play the game the right way.

“I told her, ‘don’t forget to take care of all the players, not just yourself,’ ” Silva said. 

As a point guard who wears No. 20 like her idol Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty team in the WNBA, she never forgot the message.

On Friday against the Lunas, Bal hit a baseline 3-pointer at the first quarter buzzer to give the Sabers a 20-6 lead. With 1:31 to play in the first half, Bal drove hard through the middle of the lane to make it 29-12, and with 7.6 seconds left in the first half, she took an inbounds pass and went the length of the court, dropping in a running teardrop shot from 4 feet to give the Sabers a 31-14 lead at halftime.

Victor Aguirre, who took over for Silva as Maui High head coach after the 2019-20 season, will miss his only senior from 2026. He said the team has grown up with Bal and junior leader Darsee Seegmiller.

“With Nai, when she was a freshman, she was just a piece of a very good team, pretty much the sixth player, first off the bench,” Aguirre said. “The following year, I told her and Darsee Seegmiller, ‘if we’re going to win, I need to coach you guys as hard as I can coach you.’ ”

Aguirre gave them a day to think about it.

“They told me right after we talked, they just came back to me (saying) ‘Coach, we want to do this,’ ” Aguirre recalled.

Seegmiller is out for the season with a torn ACL in her knee, an injury she suffered in a game at Lahainaluna on Dec. 30. Seegmiller was emotional returning to the place of the injury — she is set for surgery on Feb. 23 — but her senior compatriot was there to help.

“When Darsee got hurt, (Bal) was the first one crying,” Aguirre said. “Darsee was emotional coming in here today because this is where she got hurt. And Nai was the first one trying to keep her going. I credit the whole season to those two because they’re just keeping the team going, focused, no matter what injuries happen.”

Seegmiller is trying to learn as much as she can before Bal leaves Kahului for college basketball in the fall. The team started decorating the Maui High gym at 10 a.m. on Tuesday to honor their leader later that evening.

“She means a lot to us,” Seegmiller said. “The things that she does for us, we may not notice everything that she does, but she contributes a lot to this team.”

Seegmiller added, “Even though I can’t play right now, I’m still going to try to pick her brain so that next year, when I come back stronger, I can fill in her spots.”

Lahainaluna coach Iolani Kaniho has a lot of respect for Bal, and he’s relieved his team won’t have to face her after graduation. In 2025, the Sabers broke the Lady Lunas’ streak of 19-straight MIL championships.

“I won’t be sad when she leaves,” Kaniho said of Bal. “She’s a heck of a player. I’ve seen her from when she was in 8th grade. I knew she was going to be good.”

Kaniho added, “She’s not just a good player, she’s a good leader. And she leads that team very well. Heck of a job.”

If the Sabers win tonight and Tuesday, they will go to the Pacific Century Fund/HHSAA state tournament Feb. 4-6 on O‘ahu as MIL champions. The MIL runner-up will host a first-round state game on Feb. 2.

For Bal, it will be the end of an era that few MIL players have ever lived as long as she has.

“I’m definitely going to miss it,” Bal said. “I’ve been here since hanabata days, so I’m going to miss it a lot. And, you know, I’m always going to rep my Maui High Sabers.”

“Monday Morning Maui Sports” 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.