Campbell reserves bench 4th-seeded Konawaena, 58-53

Campbell's Gilbert Dayanan heads to the basket for a shot against Konawaena. Greg Yamamoto | SL

Campbell's bench performed like starters and the Sabers held off a late run by Konawaena in a 58-53 victory in the quarterfinals of the Hawaiian Airlines Division I boys' state tournament Thursday night at McKinley.

The Sabers (13-2) will play top-seeded 'Iolani in a 5 p.m. semifinal Friday at the Neal Blaisdell Center Arena. It is Campbell first semifinal appearance since 2005. That season, it beat Konawaena to reach the semifinal to face 'Iolani, which won that contest. The Sabers have not advanced beyond the state semifinals.

Starting senior guard Gilbert Dayanan led the Sabers with 14 points, but the big difference came from their bench. The Sabers got a staggering 32 points from players off the bench. Lamart Dudley led the reserves with 10 points, followed by Alex Layi's eight, Michael Merchant's seven and Jayce Bantolina's six.

"The key was our substitutions," Campbell coach Wyatt Tau said. "During the season, I'd give (starters) a little more chance. But this one, I kind of stuck to my gut."

Dudley, who led with 10 rebounds, played 25 minutes, followed by Layi's 20 and Bantolina's 17. They played more than half the game than three starters.

The Wildcats' Brandon Awa led all scorers with 25 points, 18 coming in the second half. But as a team, Konawaena was uncharacteristically inaccurate from the field, shooting a just 23.9 percent. That negated their dominance on the boards, where Kona out rebounded Campbell, 45-35, including 25 on the offensive side. But the Wildcats' putbacks did not fall.

"We were never really hitting shots," Konawaena coach Donny Awa said. "That's our game. We're not the greatest shooting team, but we had only a couple games where we shot that bad."

The Sabers did not really pressure the Wildcats, Awa said.

"We got the looks we wanted," he said. "We just couldn't hit 'em. We couldn't get our second shots (on offense)."

The first half was close. It was 7-7 before Kevin Medeiros' 3-pointer with 1:12 gave the Wildcats a 10-7 lead at the end of the first quarter.

Leads changed four times in the second quarter, but Dayanan made two 3-pointers in a span of the final 55 seconds to give Campbell a 23-18 lead at the half.

Campbell began pulling away in the third quarter when Isaac Hurd scored all of his eight points to start the period with a pair of 3-pointers and pull-up jumper that expanded Campbell's lead to 31-23. Even Merchant got into the 3-point. He was fouled on the basket and completed the rare four-point play to give Campbell a 39-26 lead after three periods.

The Sabers led by as many as 17 points midway through the fourth quarter before watching the Wildcats go on a 9-0 run to pull to 47-39 with 2:45 left.

The Wildcats pulled to within 54-47 on Awa's only 3-pointer with a little over a minute left. But the Sabers would open their lead to 57-47 with 37 seconds left.

"We started to make our run and even when we made our run, we'd missed a couple layups and they're back up 10 again," coach Awa said.

But time ran out of the Wildcats, who got the last basket of the game on Jonah Bredesen's put-back shot as time expired.

"This team, being up 17 points, almost lost the lead, but they understand how to keep their poise," Tau said of his Sabers. "I'm so proud of these guys.

The Sabers are hoping this is their Cinderella season.

"Like everyone says, 'We're not supposed to be here,' but we're here," Tau said.

But the Sabers must overcome an obstacle named 'Iolani, which is tied with Punahou with 10 state titles each.

Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at [email protected].