Update: Keanu Vela

It's been months since we last heard from one of our oldest Thunder ballers. Keanu Vela played on our second team, the 15U team in the very first CAL League at McKinley. At the time, he was just 13 or 14, an eighth grader who became one of the best young players in the state. Nobody worked harder than Keanu every day whether it was at practice (sometimes he'd catch the bus to town) or on his own time, hitting the outside courts by his house in Kailua.

Since he and his family moved to Colorado after his freshman year, that group of Thunder was never the same. They had a lot of good wins and a lot of tough losses. Keanu's talent, leadership and sense of humor were never quite replaced. But he wrote back this morning via Facebook. He had a great senior year. Next stop: College hoops.

Hey ya! My season was fantastic! I had so much fun haha. We lost a week or so ago in the sweet 16 to the eventual state champion so I don't feel too bad that we lost even though it hurt in the moment haha. I got selected to first team all league which is crazy good because it's the hardest league in the state! 5 out of the top 10 teams in the state were from our league including us so it was an honor to be selected basically.  

You'd be so proud, I broke the school record for 3FGM and 3FG % for our school (61 and 47%) so it was kind of my specialty all year. We won our national tournament in California which had Bishop Montgomery who was #6 in the nation, so that did wonders for us for the rest of the year- AND we played the hardest schedule in the state so it was good to know our competition was good 24/7 ya know? Anyway still figuring out college.  

But I'm in school so I got to go I'll talk to you later, let me know how you've been!

(Keanu mentioned later there are six schools he's interested in, including two D-I universities.)