Mililani breaks through to quarters with road win over Kekaulike

Harley Simon | ScoringLive

Making it to the quarterfinals certainly wasn't the goal for Taye Marxen and the Trojans, but getting there at least served to break the wrong kind of tradition.

Mililani built an early lead then held off a late charge by Kekaulike to notch a 54-40 win in the opening round of Hawaii Army National Guard/HHSAA Division I Boys Basketball Championships.

"The past couple of years we've gone out in the first round," said Marxen. "It was like a tradition, and I'm happy we got to break that tonight."

Prior to the win over Na Alii, the Trojans were winless as the home team to open tournament play in its last three tries, and finally broke through as the visiting team this time around.

Marxen was one of three players to hit double figures, finishing with 12 points, seven rebounds and two assists. His production, coupled with Richard Windsor's 10 points and five rebounds, accounted for nearly 42 percent of the teams' scoring and half the rebounds.

"I love when we get the bigs involved, like Richard and Bronson (Lei), I mean we work on working inside out because our bigs are good," said Marxen. "Those (inside) guys were open, especially against the zone, the middle flashes. That's what we usually look for."

Tui Tukimaka, the teams' leading scorer on the season, was the high point man, as expected, with 16, but did much of his damage via the free throw line, where he hit 7 of 8 from the stripe.

The Trojans led wire to wire, pushing the deficit to as high as 44-24 at the end of three quarters on a Paul Gardner jumper, before seeing that lead whittled down to eight on a Kyson Lacio three pointer that capped a 12-0 run for Na Alii.

Marxen finally stopped the bleeding with a basket at 44-36 that got the lead back up to double digits, and the visiting team hit of 8 of 10 free throws to close things out.

Defensively, the Trojans held Na Alii to just 1 of 17 from beyond the arc and recorded 11 steals to just six for the home team.

Kililnahe Mata-Goldman led Kekaulike across the board, racking up 17 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals in the loss, all team-highs.