WARRIORS ARE CHAMPION OF CHAMPIONS

By Patrick Lujan

The St. Paul Warriors hit the big shots when they most needed to as they laid claim as the best high school girls basketball team on island, beating the Sanchez Sharks 47-38 Saturday night in the GSPN Champion of Champions game.

With not a single 12th grader on the team, St. Paul’s young and dynamic squad had big runs early and late to take down the Sharks, who missed on several opportunities throughout the game at the FD Phoenix Center.

Junior point guard Ryanna Ngirchomlei was steady throughout, even fixing her hair while running her team’s half court offense on her way to a game-high 18 points and big time shots.

“It feels good (to win this),” Ngirchomlei said. “But we didn’t play as well as we expected to. We started off a little slow, but it’s how you finish.”

St. Paul actually jumped out to a 7-1 lead to start the night off, eventually taking a 16-7 lead after the first quarter thanks to Gabby Hahn’s eight of her 14 points.

The Warriors took their largest lead of the game at 24-14 as Ngirchomlei scored eight straight (two 3’s from the same left corner and a beautiful crossover layup).

The Sharks, however, would not go down without a fight as they slowly bit off the big lead. Britney Gatmay scored all seven of her points in the third quarter that brought the big Sanchez crowd into euphoria. The crowd went nuts when Kayna Kanemoto’s short jumper gave the Sharks its first lead of the game 30-29.

The was short-lived as Ngirchomlei calmly drained a rainbow 3-pointer to snatch the lead back for good right at the end of the third quarter.

“It was open so I just shot it. You never know until you shoot it.”

– Ryanna Ngirchomlei on her big 3 to take back the lead

Ball control and crucial shots in the fourth quarter proved to be the key to the Warriors victory as buckets by Hahn, Kimora Charfauros and Ngirchomlei upped the lead while the Sanchez offense struggled to drop in some easy baskets.

Senior Kayna Kanemoto led the Sharks with 17 points. She and fellow senior Ronnie Dela Cruz both fouled out on what was their last game on island as Sharks.

Warriors offspring

St. Paul returns their entire team next year for another run. Three of their starting five players have some athletic genes in them. Center Bella Brub is the daughter of former MMA fighter and football player Chris Brub, Kimora Charfauros got her basketball skills from her dad Kin Charfauros and Gabby Hahn has her father Brian Hahn to thank from his football and basketball days. All three players are just sophomores.

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