Aiea Blazers 56, H1 Thunder 30 (JV)

Aiea JV Tournament, Aiea District Park gym
Great performance by the host team. They shot lights out, put solid defensive pressure on us and probably forced us into 20 or 25 turnovers. We were sloppy with the ball instead of strong, our posts weren't consistently sealing their defenders down, and it was never close.

That being said, we can beat this team. When we took care of the ball, we got good shots. Take away most of the turnovers and it's an even game. But it was clear tonight that 1) This team that won the OIA (same group, same coach in Rob Godinez) is the real deal, very balanced, smart with the ball, and 2) we were fatigued.

Our football guys definitely were a step slow and I never even considered that factor in my game plan. But at the end of a busy conditioning week for the football guys and also our basketball guys training with their school teams, I still expected us to have our normal energy level. We simply did not.

We were out of sync sometimes, and it's not a shock because our older guys haven't practiced together for at least two weeks, maybe three. It wasn't that long ago that we were going 5-on-5 every day with 15 to 17 players at Makiki Park, PLUS our Thunder Alums coming to the court to give our JV and Intermediate guys great battles. That absolutely helped us win the Ikaika League title.

But we didn't play to our normal level and we ran into a juggernaut squad in Aiea. We obviously won't have practice time to prepare for Saturday's remaining two pool-play games, but if we get back to playing our kind of basketball, we could squeeze into the championship semifinals on Sunday. I expect us to push hard for that result even as we'll be missing a lot of our older guys on Saturday. Our Inter guys played well tonight when they got playing time, and they play fearlessly. I won't be surprised when they spark us into the semifinals. They are always the smallest team on the floor, but they know how to compete, how to move the ball and how to wreak havoc defensively.

We'll need that on Saturday against Kahuku and Central Kauai. I'm pumped to see our Thunder make a huge turnaround.

Lineup: Sierra, Jonah, Micah, Jance, Ryan, Radyn, Chase, Tani, Chris, Kali‘a.

Next:
Saturday, 9:00 am - Stretching/warmups at Le Jardin gym. 10:00 am - H1 Thunder vs. Kaiser (Le Jardin JV/16U League).
10:30 am - Stretching/warmups at Aiea gym. 11:30 am - H1 Thunder vs. Kahuku (Aiea JV Tournament).
1:50 pm - Stretching/warmups at Aiea gym. 2:50 pm - H1 Thunder vs. Central Kauai (Aiea JV Tournament).
WE LOVE THIS GAAAME!!