Pearl City Looks To Tie For No. 1 Position In OIA White

Wednesday - February 03, 2010
By Jack Danilewicz
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This week’s schedule won’t necessarily make or break the Pearl City boys’basketball team’s 2009-10 season, but it will go a long way in determining their seeding for the Oahu Interscholastic Association’s upcoming post-season tournament.

The Chargers visit Waialua on Thursday and travel to Waianae Saturday for another road game. Those encounters will mark Pearl City’s fourth and fifth games in seven days and will have a huge impact on the OIA White Conference standings.

“If we can take care of business and beat Nanakuli (on Tuesday) and Waialua, we would be in a two-way tie for first in the West if we were to beat Waianae,” Pearl City coach Lionel Villarmia said. “We have scrappy kids.We just have to focus and take care of the ball better, and we’ll be OK.”


 

Eliminating self-imposed miscues has been a prevailing theme since pre-season for the Chargers, who opened their OIA slate with home wins versus Nanakuli (49-38),Waialua (53-47) and Kalani (53-52 in overtime). A loss to Waianae (39-34) at home followed closely on the heels of those games, as did a road loss to Castle (31-27), leaving the Chargers at 3-2 entering last weekend’s game against Kailua.

“Right now, we have to execute better offensively,” Villarmia said. “We’re not too big, and we’re not too fast. When we play good man-toman defense, we click - that’s our bread and butter - but the last two games we’ve had over 20 turnovers, which is how it was in pre-season.

“In our first three games,we had kept it under 14. When we turn the ball over,it’s another possession where we don’t even get a shot off.”

As a reminder to take care of the ball, the Chargers have logged a few extra sprints in practice, according to their coach.

“I think they’re getting tired of running sprints in practice,“Villarmia mused.“I told them,‘We come to practice to practice basketball, not to practice turnovers.’ We want to push the ball (up the floor), but we still need to play under control.”

To date, the Chargers’ best offense has been their defense, which has performed well.

“Waianae was averaging 64 to 65 points a game, and we held them to 39, and we held Castle to 31,” Villarmia said.“Overall,we’ve played well defensively.”

Seniors Johnson Chao and Mitchell Resurrection have led the way for the Chargers,along with up-and-comers Nicholas Villarmia and Josiah De Mello, who are both juniors.Villarmia also likes the potential of reserves Kahana Neal and Issac Shim.

Chao and Resurrection were both First Team All-West selections by the conference coaches last season when juniors.

“Johnson is our ‘go-to’ man when we need a basket,” Villarmia said.“Last year, we played him more in the post, but we moved him to guard this year and he’s getting there.

“Mitchell’s experience helps us,“he added of Resurrection. “He broke his ankle in football, and he’s still on his way back.”

Nicholas Villarmia was moved up to Charger varsity last year during his sophomore year and has assumed the point guard spot.

“He’s steady,” Lionel Villarmia said of his son, who is averaging five assists a game.“He’s a good ball-handler and the quickest guard we have.”

De Mello, who is 6 feet tall, recently posted double-doubles in points and rebounds against both Waialua and Waianae.

“He’s been a steady rock the last four or five games.”

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