Balance, Mental State Are Key To Lady Mustangs’ Fate
By Jack Danilewicz
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Coach Ryan Hogue. Photo by
Leah Ball.
One week may not make a season, but Kalaheo girls basketball coach Ryan Hogue and the Lady Mustangs know that how they fare in the coming days will go a long way in determining their fate this spring.
After the Lady Mustangs improved their record to 2-2 last week, the first-year head coach talked of fine-tuning his team’s mind set.
“Our mental state is huge to our success - we have to be able to feel good about our play,” said Hogue, whose team has beaten Kaimuki and Moanalua to go with losses to Roosevelt and Kahuku. “We need a balance between having fun and working hard. We want to enjoy what we’re doing and give a great effort doing it.”
The Lady Mustangs had won two straight heading into the weekend and could easily have been 3-1, having led Kahuku late March 17 before fading down the stretch in a four-point loss. That encounter, while seen as a game that got away in the Lady Mustangs’ view, was a learning experience, according to Hogue.
“You need the intensity the whole game, and that was the difference between winning and losing the Kahuku game,“Hogue said. “We just sort of existed for awhile in that game. You can talk to them every day about the intensity it takes to play in the East, but until they see it (for themselves), it doesn’t click for them. We didn’t play as hard as we should have in that game, but our defense has been getting better (since that game).”
Hogue’s team will have the opportunity to position itself favorably in the league race this week with games against league-leaders Kalani on Wednesday and Roosevelt on Saturday. Both teams entered their first regular-season meeting unbeaten in the league last week before the Rough Riders eked out a 48-46 win. Roosevelt is the defending DI OIA champion, while Kalani was the DII champion before being assigned to DI last summer. The Falcons, who feature last year’s DII Player of the Year in Megan Kamehiro, scored an upset-win over defending DI state champion Punahou in the pre-season last month. The Lady Mustangs play Kalani a second time April 18 (on the road) in the regular-season finale for both teams.
“As the two front-runners, beating Kalani or Roosevelt will take a very focused game on our part, but we think we can do it,” Hogue said. “The difference between the two is Roosevelt’s tough man-toman defense, which is something that gives us trouble. Kalani has great size and great guards, but they’re not very physical. They board well, and they can shoot. We’d have to step it up a level to beat either of them.”
Defense has always been the program’s forte through the years, and Hogue is hoping for a prototypical Lady Mustang effort on that end of the court this week as well.
“You have to beat a more talented team with your defense,” he said. “You have to hold them down.”
Offensively, the Lady Mustangs’ search for balance continues, the coach said. Senior Shanadee Canon, one of the state’s top scorers for the past three years, is averaging 18.5 points per outing, but no other Lady Mustang is scoring in double figures at present. Point guard Delicia Wilson (6.0) has been the most steady of Canon’s supporting cast to date.
“As a team, we’re doing better,” Hogue said.“We’ve battled through a funk that we were going through. We’re a couple of glitches away from helping Shan out more (offensively).”
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