Jacob Andrade got ahead of the defense, found the open lanes and had a hot hand.

But his St. Joseph coaches still tried to figure out how their senior guard finished with 44 points in last Tuesday's win over Hilo. They found the answer in their brick award that they give to the worst shooter of each game, which was awarded to Andrade prior to the Hilo game.

"Most kids would take it light heartedly," explained St. Joseph coach Harry Scanlan-Leite. "It's meant as humor, to keep it light. But he's such a competitor, he didn't want to be the two-time winner. The next game, he was determined to shoot a lot better than the game before."

Andrade made 17 of 25 field goals, including 8 of 11 3-pointers, in St. Joseph's 65-47 win over Hilo in a Big Island Interscholastic Federation game before an estimated crowd of 1,500. His performance came within the team's system and Will Scanlan-Leite, the coach's son, had 11 assists.

"It was all within the game, it wasn't like he was forcing shots," coach Scanlan-Leite said. "We were running our offense and he got open. In transition, he seemed to find the open spots. In our second break where we have our shooters run to our spots, he went to his and he was wide open."

St. Joseph led 27-23 at halftime and the third quarter was close until Andrade found his shot and didn't miss.

"We were playing really good team defense and keeping them from scoring," Andrade said. "My teammates recognized that I had a hot hand and kept feeding me the ball and I stayed relaxed to try to hit my shots."

In St. Joseph's win over Kamehameha-Hawai'i on Jan. 8, Andrade missed two free throws in regulation and the Warriors scored to force overtime. His coaches sensed he was determined to have a better outing next time. St. Joseph suffered a letdown in Thursday's 38-23 loss to Kea'au where Andrade had 10 points. He had 37 in Saturday's win over Pähoa.

The cardboard bricks are taken lightheartedly and players put funny pictures of themselves — sometimes the coach's photo — on the bricks. Players also receive miniature Army figures for doing things like taking charges or diving for a loose ball. Figures can be redeemed to get out of a running drill, but no one has done so.

Division II St. Joseph (4-1) had an impressive preseason, winning their own tournament, at Moanalua, beating Kea'au twice and staying close in a loss to Kamehameha.

"It (preseason) helps because we play a lot of DI teams this year and in the regular season we only play two other DII teams," Andrade said of the BIIF schedule where teams are separated based on geography, not divisions. "So we get to play a lot of the bigger schools and that really helps us prepare for the BIIF tournament states. The tournament games, all being one day after another, it helps to get you conditioned and used to playing games day in and out."