HondaReport.com - Girls' Basketball: No. 3 Punahou edges No. 4 Iolani, 39-38

Girls' Basketball: No. 3 Punahou edges No. 4 Iolani, 39-38

As iron sharpens iron, the Punahou Buff n' Blue are finding new ways to win with each test in the furnace. Here is the unedited version of the Punahou-Iolani game story published in Wednesday's Star-Bulletin.

HONOLULU—The might of Punahou was tested again, and the Buff n’ Blue emerged from the furnace known as Interscholastic League of Honolulu basketball with another close win.

Shanna-Lei Dacanay scored four points down the stretch, and Eryn Chun’s steal with 12 seconds left propelled Punahou over Iolani, 39-38, last night at Hemmeter Fieldhouse.

The win gave Punahou sole possession of first place with a 5-0 mark (13-2 overall). Iolani, one of the youngest teams in the state, dropped to 4-1.

Dacanay led the Buff n’ Blue with 12 points and seven rebounds. Christine Takara tallied 11 points and seven rebounds as Punahou outboarded the visiting Lady Raiders, 26-25. It was the second down-to-the-wire win in a row for Punahou, which is ranked No. 3 in the HondaReport.com Girls’ Basketball Top Ten.

In fact, before beating Iolani and Kamehameha-O’ahu in the past three nights, there was a seven-point win over another young squad, Mid-Pacific.

Never a dull—or easy—night in the ILH, that’s for sure. “Nobody’s gonna blow out anybody,” veteran head coach Mike Taylor said. “We just gotta keep taking it one game at a time until we reach our goal.”

Hennesea-Sue Tokumura scored nine points to pace Iolani. Ginger Gravelle and Alana Wall grabbed five caroms apiece for Iolani, which surged to No. 4 in the Top Ten this week.

“We had a good chance. I know we’re a young team, but we’re jelling now,” said Tokumura, a sophomore. “Their press got us a couple of turnovers.”

Punahou’s full-court pressure netted just eight Iolani turnovers, but they came in handy during a low-possession defensive struggle.

“We knew their pressbreaker, and they know our press,” Taylor said. “It’s a matter of making plays. Eryn had a stellar game defensively.”

Punahou, the defending state champion, took a 5-4 lead midway through the opening quarter and expanded it to six late in the second quarter. Iolani chipped away and finally regained the lead, 25-24, on a tough left-handed runner by Tokumura with 6:59 left in the game.

The lead changed hands three more times before Punahou opened a 34-29 lead after Dacanay stole an inbounds pass and went coast-to-coast for a layup.

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Iolani’s full-court pressure yielded just seven turnovers by Punahou, but two came on the next two possessions. Gravelle sank two foul shots and Tokumura drained a 3-pointer from the left wing as Iolani tied the game at 34 with 2:28 left.

Takara hit one of her two free-throw attempts to give Punahou a 35-34 lead with 1:30 remaining. Tokumura fed Wall on the baseline, and the sophomore sank a 16-footer to give Iolani a 36-35 lead with 53 seconds to go.

Dacanay sank two foul shots with 32 seconds left to give the Buff n’ Blue a 37-36 lead. Iolani then had three opportunities to take the lead, but Kaz Masutani missed an open baseline jumper, center Keilyn Fujioka missed a five-foot putback, and Wall was stripped of the ball by Chun.

Chun, a 5-foot-3 guard, delivered an outlet pass and Dacanay scored on an easy layup with seven seconds left. That gave Punahou a 39-36 lead. The Lady Raiders, who called time out with 5.7 seconds left, couldn’t get a 3-point shot off. Fujioka sank a layup with two-tenths of a second left for the final margin.

The Lady Raiders are in sole possession of second place, a good sign in a league that has just two automatic state berths. A third berth is allotted in a special tournament after the regular season. Iolani, with just one senior and one junior, are likely to get better and better.

“Even though we are young, we’re not going to treat them like that,” Iolani coach Glenn Takara said. “In the first half, we were hesitant, almost playing not to lose. In the second half, we played the way we wanted. We had the effort, the rebounding.”

Iolani was competitive in preseason, but the team’s improvement has been significant. “At that time, we weren’t a team yet. It was a good learning experience, and it brought us together,” Takara said. “Alana’s been doing it, stepping it up. So have Marci (Kang) and Keilyn. Those three are just sophomores. Down the line, all this will help us.”

Wall’s improvement has been a boost to the Iolani offense. “She’s a tall, lanky and quick player,” Taylor said. “She picks her spots to beat you. She doesn’t force shots. And she’s quick in transition.”

Don’t look for the Lady Raiders to hit a slump now that they’ve taken their first league loss. “Ginger’s good at all that,” Takara said of his lone senior. “She’s the heart of our team. She keeps everyone up and focused.”

Additional statistics provided by Alan Lau.