Lady Chargers Thick In The Race For State Championship
By Jack Danilewicz
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Pearl City point guard Glacen Florita isn’t always audible, but she’s almost always effective. A three-year starter for the Chargers, Florita leads her team into this week’s Division I Girls State Basketball Tournament.
“When she does talk, they listen to her because she does-n’t talk that often,” Pearl City coach Mike Morton said. “She’s a quiet one who leads by example. Last week when we lost to Moanalua (41-40 in the OIA post-season tournament), it was the most disappointed I’ve seen her. I was happy to see that. It shows she has some fire.”
Other qualities include her ability to get Pearl City in and out of its offense and her intense on-the-ball defense. “Her strength is knowing when to get the ball to certain individuals,” Morton added. “She knows what to do and when to do it. She’s just really smart. She understands the game, and she’s a 4.0 student. She’s handling the ball for us the majority of the time, and she’s good on defense also.
“She’s pretty much been a surprise, and she’s still learning because she hasn’t played basketball for that long.”
The Chargers are a deep team whose rotation also features Keshia Manning, Leina Vasquez, Sabrina Angle, Shawna Angle, Alana Kaili, A.J. Sylva and Tearaina Meyer.
The combination of Florita and Ahakuelo in the back court has been steady and is one of the reasons Pearl City took a 13-3 overall mark into the state tournament, which began yesterday. Ahakuelo has been a consistent scorer from the shooting guard spot.
The Chargers also hit their stride down the season stretch with six straight wins to close out their OIA Red West slate. They sandwiched tough losses to Roosevelt and Moanalua around an impressive win over Mililani in the OIA Tournament to punch their ticket for the state tournament - their first appearance there since 2003.
This week, the first priority is to get out of their own way, as miscues undermined their momentum in their losses in the OIA playoffs. The Chargers led in both games.
“We had chances in both games,” said Morton, whose team also beat Castle in their first-round game.
“Whoever makes the more mistakes usually is the team that loses. This game is a lot of mental (preparation). You can’t run faster and jump higher (in the post-season), but you can focus more and execute better. We made some turnovers (in the OIA playoffs) we don’t usually make. It comes down to execution offensively and defensively, and you have to get stops.
“Every game is close now, and every mistake is magnified more.”
The Chargers have benefited largely from their experience. Florita and Ahakuelo are in their third season together as the team’s starting back court tandem.
“We’ve seen a lot of maturity, which is what we were counting on over the summer,” Morton said.”(A willingness to do) Anything to help the team win is what we want. That is the main stat - the W.”
The Chargers’ inside game has also helped to complement their stellar play in the forecourt. In addition to the effort of Manning inside, Morton has been buoyed by the play of both Kaili and Meyer, who has battled back from a torn ACL between her sophomore and junior seasons.
Pairings for the State Tournament, which runs Tuesday through Friday, were to be announced late Sunday. The early-round games will be played at Radford and McKinley high schools, with Friday’s championship game set for Blaisdell Arena.
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