Meacham, Lefotu power Saint Louis to season sweep of Punahou

Greg Yamamoto | SL

Lesson learned.

Paced by a combined 41 points from Keanu Meacham and Zion Lefotu, top-ranked Saint Louis atoned for its first league loss in a big way, rolling to a 64-45 win over second ranked Punahou.

"That loss against Kamehameha really lit a fire under us," said Lefotu of the 63-61 defeat suffered just two days earlier. "We wanted to come out today to set the tone and I think we did that pretty well today."

"We weren't mentally prepared, we were just playing around," Meacham added. "But this game we were locked in."

A back and forth first quarter saw the Crusaders break away ever so slightly heading into the second at 11-7, and steadily built that margin to nine at halftime buoyed by a seven point period from Lefotu. Also big in that first half was post Ricky Liilii, who brought energy on both sides of the ball, but was especially disruptive on defense.

"He gets a lot of blocks and he helps us a lot with rebounding because he's such a big guy," said Meacham of Lilii.

Liilii picked up a third foul in the first half, then another early in the third that limited his efffectiveness down the stretch, but by then the margin had already extended to double digits.

Punahou was able to trim the margin down to seven in the third, but never got any closer, and saw the game eventually get well of out reach as Meacham exploded offensively in the final quarter of play to shut the door on any kind of comeback attempt.

The senior guard scored 11 of his game-high 22 in the fourth, including a twisting fallaway jumper in the paint over two defenders as the shot clock expired and a pair of heat check pul up threes over Buffanblu defenders.

"When he starts getting like that, I just let him go," laughed Lefotu of Meacham's fourth quarter outburst. "When he starts going, it's kind of hard for anyone to stop him."

Ethan Chung hit just 1 of 9 shots from the field but did knock down all four free throw attempts to salvage a six point evening, while Tanoa Scanlan was extended his streak of double digit scoring games in league play this season to four with 15 points. He also led the team with six rebounds.

The Crusaders assisted on 13 of the 24 baskets made, led by Lefotu with four.

"We had an empahsis on not doing one pass shots, just moving the ball around and just getting a good shot every time down the floor," said Meacham.