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Kalani Takase | ScoringLiveFebruary 1, 2014, 7:11pm
Sat, Feb 1, 2014 @ Punahou
MAKIKI — Josh Burnett continues to make his presence felt at the end of games.
Burnett hit the game-tying 3-pointer near the end of regulation and scored five of Maryknoll's nine points in overtime to lead the Spartans to a 55-51 win over Punahou Saturday afternoon.
A capacity crowd of about 600 at Hemmeter Fieldhouse witnessed Maryknoll improve to 8-1 and capture the Interscholastic League of Honolulu Division I regular-season title. The Spartans, the top-ranked team in the ScoringLive/OC16 Boys Basketball Power Rankings, secured one of the ILH's two state-tournament berths by doing so.
"The biggest motivation was none of us had won at Punahou before, so our mindset was to come out and leave everything on the line so that we could win our last game at Punahou," said Burnett, who scored 15 of his game-high 21 points after halftime. "We knew that if we won this game, we would go to states and we wouldn't have to worry about having to play our way in. Now we're just playing for the first seed."
The second-ranked Buffanblu took the lead — their first since the opening minute of the third quarter — with two minutes and 25 seconds remaining in the fourth on a mid-range jumper by Dayson Watanabe that made it 44-43. They stretched it to a three-point advantage on Daniel Andrew's putback with just over a minute to play.
That's when Burnett took over.
Burnett drained a long-range 3-pointer from the right wing to tie it at 46 with 40 seconds left and on Punahou's ensuing possession, he rejected Watanabe's layup attempt to send it into overtime.
"Our team needed somebody to step up and when I got the ball I just felt like I needed to step up and I made the shot," said Burnett, a 6-foot-4 wing.
Just three days earlier, Burnett made a buzzer-beating layup to complete Maryknoll's 39-37 win over Iolani in another down-to-the-wire thriller.
"They've been doing that all year," Maryknoll coach Kelly Grant said of the duo of Burnett and Kaleb Gilmore, who scored 19 points Saturday. "I run a play and then they improvise and they hit a big shot. The game before this against Iolani, I called the same play and Kaleb hit the shot and this one I call the same play and Josh hits the shot."
Burnett shot 50 percent (6 of 12) from the field, including 3 of 6 on 3-point attempts, and grabbed a team-high six rebounds.
"This is the one game that I felt Josh played well on a big stage," Grant said. "He's been playing well in other games, but I wanted him to play well against Punahou, Iolani, teams like that — on a big stage — and he did a real good job today."
The game was a back-and-forth affair, with the lead exchanging hands 10 times. Punahou fell behind 12-5 after the first quarter, but led by as many as six following a 18-5 run to open the second. Maryknoll's largest lead was seven points, which came on Michael Miske's layup seconds into the fourth quarter, but the Buffanblu answered with a 13-5 run that was capped by Watanabe's go-ahead bucket.
"(We had to give) just all-out effort," said Gilmore, who shot 8 of 17 from the field. "We had to play hard the whole game, we couldn't just let up or they would creep up like they did when we stopped moving the ball around and then when we started moving the ball around we got easy shots."
Punahou shot 40 percent (20 of 50) from the field, but struggled from the free-throw line, going just 6 of 15 from the charity stripe.
"We're usually a good free-throw shooting team, but we struggled today," Buffanblu coach Darren Matsuda said. "Even our best free-throw shooters weren't making their shots and that definitely hurt our chances at the end."
The Spartans shot 44.4 percent (20 of 45) on field goals and were just 10 of 19 on free throws, but made five of seven from the line in overtime.
"That was real important, that was crucial for us," Gilmore said. "We practice free throws everyday, so we're supposed to make it, but with this kind of pressure it feels good to make them."
Justin Kam scored a team-high 15 points, Andrews 13 and Watanabe 11 to lead Punahou.
Maryknoll led at halftime, 27-26.
Punahou won the first-round meeting back on Jan. 17, 63-52. It remains as the only loss for Maryknoll this season.
"We just had to make adjustments and execute them," Grant said. "I thought we did a good job executing our man-to-man defense. We did a lot of switching that we didn't do the last time. We put different personnel on the floor to matchup with their speed and shooting ability.
The Buffanblu, who suffered their second loss in their last three games, fell into a tie for second place with Iolani at 6-3. They close out the regular-season against the Raiders on Wednesday.
Maryknoll also wraps up the regular season Wednesday at Kamehameha.
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