WAILUKU-The Lunas junior varsity girls basketball team defeated the Warriors, 39-28, in the first match of the season Oct. 29, at Jon E. Garcia Gymnasium.

The game started slowly with a score of 9-5 with the Lunas in the lead.

In the second quarter with three minutes remaining, the Warriors continued to stay close to the Lunas, 15-11. Toward the end of the quarter, freshman Angel Pauole made two free throws and a field goal of two points for the Lunas, while Susitina Namoa also made two free throws and two additional field goals, making the score 21-15.

In the last half of the game, both teams continued to work hard on both offense and defense.

“We played together and we just gave 110% effort,” Lahainaluna’s Ilaisaane Hafoka said.

The Warriors pushed harder and made 13 points. Some of those points came from Tatiana Soon and Kylie Murakami who both made a field goal, and Mikiala Sniffen, who hit a three-pointer.

“For being inexperienced and being their first game, they did really well,” Warriors head coach Danny Aguirre said.

In the second half of the game, the Lunas scored 18 points, and the game ended 39-28.

The teams seemed equally matched, but the Warriors have some work to do as they enter the season.

Freshman Tatiana Soon said, “To prepare for the next game, I’ll have to work on communication with my team and ball handling… so we can make more shots.”

Since this is the first jv basketball team since the winter season of 2012-13, the team is basically starting from scratch.

“We are going to work on all the stuff they did not do” Coach Aguirre said. “We [have to] cut [the turnovers] back to half, then the next game after that, we are going to cut that in half [again].”

Gallery • 4 Photos

Photo by Holly Honda

Freshman Tatiana Soon (13) shoots her free throws.