HondaReport.com - Girls' Basketball: No. 3 Punahou escapes with 37-33 win over No. 6 Kamehameha-O'ahu

Girls' Basketball: No. 3 Punahou escapes with 37-33 win over No. 6 Kamehameha-O'ahu

The Warriors of Kamehameha-O'ahu showed tremendous resiliency, bouncing back from a loss to Iolani with a strong performance against Punahou Saturday night. Still, the visiting Buff n' Blue escaped with a 37-33 win.

HONOLULU—The Kamehameha-O’ahu Warriors came up short against Punahou Saturday night, but their toughest critic was left satisfied.

Trailing by two with 28 seconds left, the Warriors turned the ball over on a bad pass with nine ticks left. Punahou guard Shanna-Lei Dacanay sank a pair of free throws with five seconds left to put the game out of reach as the Buff n’ Blue escaped with a 37-33 win.

“The fought hard and never gave up,” Warriors head coach Clay Cockett said. “We kept punching that punching bag. Sometimes we didn’t have all five (players) punching.”

Kamehameha-O’ahu slipped to 2-2, behind Punahou and Iolani. The top two finishers in the ILH secure automatic state tournament berths, while the remaining Division I schools and a Division II representative play in a tournament for the third berth.

“Punahou is a well-oiled machine,” Cockett said. “They’ve got several girls who have played together a long time.”

For now, however, sixth-ranked Kamehameha proved to itself that they can compete with the league’s best. The Warriors outrebounded Punahou, 42-27, and point guard India Soo pumped in 15 points in her best offensive performance of the season.

“We wanted to keep Mounia and Lori (Nakamura) close to the basket,” Cockett noted. “India played under control a whole lot.”

However, Punahou’s full-court press presented problems for Kamehameha-O’ahu, which committed 18 turnovers. “Especially against a good press-breaking team like Kamehameha, anything over 12 or 15 turnovers is in our favor,” Punahou head coach Mike Taylor said.

For Punahou, the win was intriguing. Dacanay finished with just four points—meaning she had just two until the final nine seconds. Christine Takara, another key scorer, tallied just six. The good news is that senior guard Eryn Chun stepped with seven points, including key free throws and a pivotal steal and layup in the final minutes. Reserve forward Mary Fields sank a couple of key shots in the second half.

“Eryn stepped up in the second half. She jump-started us on defense,” Taylor said.

And, perhaps best of all, freshman Chelsea Deptula scored 10 points, grabbed six rebounds and had four steals in a clutch performance. “We know we’ve got depth. That’s what we always preach, to go 100 percent whenever you’re in the game,” Taylor said.

In addition to Soo, Mounia Nihipali scored eight points and grabbed a game-high 15 rebounds. Tatriana Lorenzo finished with six points and 10 boards.

The Warriors opened the game with a man-to-man defense and led, 8-6, on Soo’s 3-pointer as the first-quarter buzzer sounded.

Punahou stuck to its full-court press and halfcourt man sets, but fell behind. The Warriors switched to a box-and-one, focusing on Dacanay, to gain momentum. “We worked on it for five minutes at the end of practice,” Taylor said. “We figured they would do that or maybe a 1-2-2 zone if they didn’t go man.”

Soo scored four more points as the Warriors took their biggest lead, 19-14, with 4:37 to play in the second quarter.

Kamehameha-O’ahu outrebounded Punahou, 9-0, to start the second quarter. The Buff n’ Blue came alive with the press. Deptula sank a turnaround jumper in the post, hustled for a bank shot off the offensive boards, and sank a layup as Punahou tied the game at 24 going into halftime.

The game was tied three times in the fourth quarter as the Warriors went back to its man defense and answered Punahou basket for basket. Takara sank a pull-up jumper on the break, but Soo followed with her own fastbreak jump shot from the foul line to tie it at 26.

Fields sank a 15-foot baseline jumper, but Nihipali answered with a turnaround jumper moments later, tying the game at 28 with 4:04 remaining.

Fields added another baseline shot, but Lorenzo hit a hanging baseline jumper to tie the game at 30 with 2:43 remaining.

A pair of Punahou turnovers gave the Warriors two chances to take the lead. However, Chun poked the ball away from Soo, and out of a wild scramble at midcourt that left five players on the floor, Deptula came up with the ball and shoveled it to Chun. Punahou’s only senior made a left-handed layup to give the Buff n’ Blue a 32-20 lead with 1:29 left.

After the Warriors missed the front end of a one-and-one, Takara scored underneath on a feed from Dacanay to give Punahou a four-point lead with 54 seconds to go.

Nihipali answered with a quick bucket in the post. She sank the ensuing free throw to bring the Warriors within 34-33 with 37 seconds remaining.

The Warriors fouled Chun, who went to the line with 28 seconds left. She made the front end of her one-and-one, but missed the second shot. That set up Kamehameha’s final sequence.

After a time out, the Warriors inbounded to Nihipali near the hashmark. She passed cross-court to Lorenzo, who had begun to cut toward the basket. The ball sailed out of bounds with nine seconds left.

“We wanted to get the ball to India or Jordan (Tangonan),” Cockett said. “It was just a bad pass.”