Lady Knights: Slow To Score But Hitting On All Cylinders

Wednesday - March 07, 2007
By Jack Danilewicz
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Castle High School Knights coach Jeff McKeown talks with his girls basketball team. Photo by Nathalie Walker
Castle High School Knights coach Jeff McKeown talks with
his girls basketball team. Photo by Nathalie Walker,
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In the world of girls basketball, it isn’t unusual for a team’s defense to be ahead of its offense in the early pre-season.

With that in mind, Castle High coach Jeff McKeown was hardly hitting the panic button after his team was hard-pressed to score in its first five pre-season games. The veteran coach considers the Knights to be largely on schedule as they look ahead to their regular-season opener March 14 at Campbell High School.

“We’re running a brand new offense this year - a spread-motion offense - which involves a lot more cutting to the basket than in the past,” said McKeown, who led Castle to a 12-5 record in 2006. “We knew we would struggle (offensively) the first two weeks. Part of the offense is reading the defense, and we need to get better than that. Every day we get better.


“Any system you put in will work as long as the kids believe in it.

“We still haven’t put in all of our man-to-man offense,” he added. “That is something we’re working on this week. Our goal is to get better through the pre-season and by the regular season, be clocking if not on all cylinders, enough to be competitive with most teams.

“Overall the attitude has been positive. The kids have worked real hard in practice and have played hard in games. If that continues, we’ll be fine.”

The Knights finished fifth in the Division II State Basketball Tournament last May and have their sights set on being a factor once again in the Oahu Interscholastic Association’s White Conference, after being among the league’s top three teams the past two seasons. As was the case with those Knights teams, defense has been Castle’s forte in this early pre-season. Against one of Division II’s toughest schedules, with games against Mililani, Pearl City, Nanakuli, Radford and Saint Francis, the Knights gave up less than 40 points in every encounter, despite a 1-4 record.

“We’ve played some pretty decent teams, so we’re encouraged,” McKeown said. “Our defense has been solid. We’re helping each other out, we’re rotating to the right positions, and we’ve rebounded efficiently enough for our size. Although we didn’t rebound well in our first two games, in the last three we came out a lot better.”

Senior guard Nikki Kobashigawa has been Castle’s leader to date, especially with several absences from the lineup because of injuries.

“Nikki is doing what we expected of her,” McKeown said of Kobashigawa, a three-year varsity player. “She plays hard, and she plays good defense. She’s in the right spots, and she’s one of our emotional leaders.”


Veterans Marissa Ameperosa, Sarah Phromisiri and Candace Ames have each played in only two of Castle’s five games, although McKeown expects all the Knights to be back at 100 percent and in the lineup for this week-end’s Mililani Tournament.

Having a full roster at its disposal can only bode well for a team that has been plagued by self-inflicted wounds, according to McKeown.

“The other teams have been having us have to grind it out against them,” he said. “We’ve struggled with pressure. Instead of attacking it, we’ve gone away from it, which is the worst thing you can do with our offense. The biggest thing is that we have to keep attacking.”

Castle’s first-round game Thursday at the Mililani Tournament will be against Interscholastic League of Honolulu’s Sacred Hearts. Starting times and matchups for Friday’s and Saturday’s games will be determined by the outcome of Thursday’s game.

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