Pearl City Standouts Now Shining On Chaminade’s Court
Former Pearl City stand-outs Sabrina Angle and Glacen Florita are two reasons why the Chargers thrived on the basketball court during their prep years. A couple of years later, the pair now are having a similar impact in the local college basketball scene at Chaminade.
Both women were key components last week when the local college team posted perhaps the biggest win of its short history, a 72-68 road triumph over BYU-Hawaii. The win marked the first-ever by Chaminade at Cannon Activities Center and also was the first time the team had seen multiple wins in the same season since 2006-07.
The victory also snapped a 62-game road losing streak and a 51-game conference losing streak on the road, both dating back to February 2007.
Chaminade had been behind by 12 points at intermission in the BYUH game before making a comeback.
Florita, a senior from Ewa Beach, scored 13 points and also contributed a career-best seven assists.
She has started every game to date and is averaging 7.1 points per game. Most impressive has been Florita’s free-throw shooting, as she’s converting 86.5 percent from the charity stripe.
Angle tallied nine points versus BYUH, four points above her season average. Now a sophomore, she has started all but one game this year. As at Pearl City, her perimeter shooting has been her strength. Her 16 3-pointers leads the team to date. Chaminade still trailed 40-39 when Angle hit a huge 3-pointer a minute-and-a-half into the second half to take the lead, its first since early in the game.
The Silverswords also have benefitted greatly from the play of freshman Lilia Maio of Nanakuli, who figured big in the historic win, scoring a team-high 19 points to go with 10 rebounds.
“Coach (Bobby Keanini) expects a lot out of us younger players,” said Maio, who played her prep basketball at Kamehameha-Kapalama. “We try to work hard every day. We know the talent we have and that we can come out with wins. We have upperclassmen that have pushed us, and that helps step up our game, and we come out and do what we have to do.”
Chaminade’s roster also includes West Oahu residents Chandler Arce (Kaiser High) of Ewa Beach and Carissa McBride of Waipahu (Leilehua High).
Chaminade is on the road this week against Academy of Art and Dominican University. The next home game is Feb. 3 against Azusa Pacific.
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