Story by Miranda Ogata | Special to Hawaii 24/7

Thursday (Oct 15) evening’s Midnight Madness at the UHH Gym introduced the men’s and women’s basketball teams for 2009. 33 young men and women put on an entertaining show for the fans. J.E. Orozco started off the fun with some prizes for fans who managed to sink a free throw. That was followed by the introductions of the women, who each tossed t-shirts into the stands as they were called. The men threw out caps and then did lay-ups as their introduction.

Then it was time to get serious, sort of. A 3-point shooting contest pitted the seniors Hina Kimitete and Mana Camara against each other, fighting for the right to take on the winner on the men’s side, where seniors Kevin Bruce and Bryan Ngo battled it out. Kevin and Hina won, and met in the championship, where Hina proved more accurate and took the title of 3-point Queen.

2-ball hotshot games followed, with Kayce Kirihara and Kirsty Imai taking on Jazz Corpuz and Natalie Mata. On the men’s side, Andrew Gipson and Steve Schicker took the win and met Jazz and Natalie in the championship. It was the men’s turn to be accurate this time, and they pulled out the win…. after three ties… to become the Hotshot Kings.

The final event of the evening was the dunk competition. Justin Smith, Lavell Shipman, and Vince Sanekane entertained the crowd with their attempts and successes. The competition went three rounds, until the title was captured by Justin Smith with a rafter-pass dunk, helped along by a team mate who was up high in the gym rafters waiting to pass him the ball.

The Vulcans kick off their regular seasons in November. The women play two exhibition games Nov 6 and 7, against the Alumni at the UHH gym and then the Rainbow Wahine at the Honokaa gym. Their first home game is against BYUH on Dec 18. The men play their first home game against Western New Mexico on Nov 25.