Lady Sabers Work Through Growing Pains In DI B-ball

Wednesday - February 04, 2009
By Jack Danilewicz
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That Jody Bantolina stops short of saying her Campbell team is playing its best basketball of the season might be a good thing in the long run for the team.

In Hawaii prep basketball, champions are crowned in February after all,and no one understands that better than the Sabers, who captured the Division II state title last season before moving up to DI in December.

“I still think we have a lot of improving to do,” said Bantolina, who is in her first year as head varsity coach after an impressive run as the school’s JV coach. “They’re not playing their best yet. They just have to believe.”

For their part, the Sabers have endured far more than merely a brutal OIA Red West schedule. The passing of former longtime head girls coach Nathan Macadangdang to an illness Jan. 15 left a huge void within the Saber nation, especially among former players.


Macadangdang, who was 46, had coached the Sabers to their state title last February before retiring because of health issues.

“Everyone was surprised - they couldn’t believe it,” said Bantolina.

The Sabers had to play against Radford the very night they received the news.Despite playing with heavy hearts, they pulled through to post a 58-49 win that night. In retrospect, Bantolina thinks it was a good thing that the Sabers had to play that night - albeit under less than ideal circumstances.

“I think it drove them to play harder,” she said.“He had come to one of our games (days before), and later on they wished they’d played harder in that one. They’ve dedicated the rest of their season to him. They’re playing for him as well as for themselves.”

Campbell, which took a 4-3 record into last Thursday night’s action, was to host Mililani last Thursday and Aiea Saturday before a visit to Radford Tuesday. On Thursday, they close out the season on the road versus Pearl City in a game that figures to be huge in positioning for the upcoming OIA playoffs. The top two finishers in each division earn first-round byes for the OIA Tournament.

While the odds were against catching West-leader Aiea, second place would seem well within reach for the Sabers. Among their points of emphasis lately has been to maximize their scoring opportunities, especially when in the uptempo mode, according to Bantolina.

“Our fast-break has been looking good, but finishing has been a problem,“she admitted.“We haven’t been making the easy shots.”


In Pearl City, Campbell will face one of the better defensive teams in the league on Thursday. They escaped with a 27-22 win over the Chargers in the first meeting between the teams at Campbell. That game marked the Sabers’ lowest offensive output of the season.

“We have to stop their (Pearl City’s) outside shooting and keep running the ball,” said Bantolina, whose team’s only loss this year came to Kapolei (40-32) on Jan. 9. “We have a lot of tall girls with long arms. That helps.”

The Sabers have largely been a team without superstars so far this season, in Bantolina’s view. Campbell opened the 2008-09 season with only one returning starter in post player Oli Kila and a handful of key reserves in Randi Wright, Ama Lui and Jazmin Brown. All four have been among the team’s key contributors.

“Everyone has their day. There hasn’t been any one go-to person.”

The top five finishers at the OIA Tournament earn the league’s automatic berths in the Division I State Tournament, which will run Feb. 24-27 at various sites.

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