Punahou's Chris Kobayashi goes up for a layup attempt against Kaiser. Kobayashi scored 18 points in the Buffanblu's win over the Cougars. Peter Caldwell | SL

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Wed, Dec 30, 2015 @ Punahou

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Punahou

68

Kaiser

54

Final	1	2	3	4
Punahou (9-6, 27-9)	14	8	17	29	68
Kaiser (12-2, 28-7)	6	11	18	19	54

C. Kalaugher 24 pts  10/12 FTs

C. Kobayashi 18 pts  5 3pm  1/2 FTs

MAKIKI — Chris Kobayashi was dialed in Wednesday night.

Kobayashi scored 13 of his team-high 18 points in the fourth quarter to help No. 2 Punahou to a 68-54 win over No. 3 Kaiser in the title game of the 44th Punahou Invitational before a crowd of about 400 fans at Hemmeter Fieldhouse.

The Buffanblu won their eighth straight game to improve to 15-1. They avenged a 74-73 overtime loss to the Cougars on Dec. 12 — the lone blemish on their otherwise-perfect record.

Kobayashi, a 6-foot junior shooting guard, hit four 3-pointers in the final quarter. It was the second consecutive he made five treys in a game. In a five-point overtime win over Kamehameha in Tuesday's semifinal round, Kobayashi finished with a game-high 16 points.

"This is kind of his year," Punahou coach Darren Matsuda said. "He's been a role player the last two years and he's really done a good job of stepping up. His release got quicker, but the biggest thing for him is defense. He's moving without the ball, he's playing attention to detail and doing the mature things he needs to do to be a great player."

Kobayashi's only points of the first half came on a triple from the right wing at the 5:32 mark of the second quarter. He had a breakaway layup early in the third quarter, but took over the game in the fourth. Kobayashi drained back-to-back 3-pointers to open the final stanza and hit two others from the right side of the floor.

"The plays were coming my way and my teammates were really just looking for me," said Kobayashi, who finished one point shy of matching his season high in scoring. "They knew that I was feeling it in the fourth quarter and they found me, so it was all them."

Kaiser held a one-point lead following a Keoua Mahiko three-point play with 4:45 left in the third quarter that capped a 10-2 run.

Punahou reclaimed the lead for good a few minutes later on a baseline drive and finger roll by Cole Mausolf. Maninoa Tufono stretched it to a 39-35 lead with his buzzer-beating tip-in to end the third quarter.

The Buffanblu led by as many as 13 points after Kobayashi's last 3-pointer. Kaiser never cut the deficit to less than nine the rest of the way.

"They knocked down a lot of 3-point shots," Cougars coach Branden Kawazoe said. "They just made a lot of shots and they got the 50-50 balls and the rebounds and they won the possession battle, so if we don't take care of those things it can be tough games."

Chance Kalaugher scored a game-high 24 points. He was 10 of 12 from the free-throw line. The 6-foot-5 senior was coming off 23 points in a quarterfinal win over Maryknoll Monday and 24 points in a semifinal win over top-ranked Iolani Tuesday.

"Chance is not a guy you can guard one on one," Matsuda said. "He's a great player; I think he's the best player in the state. (Iolani junior center) Hugh Hogland and him are probably the two best players in the state and it takes a team effort to beat them. Kaiser is definitely a good team. They're an outstanding team and they're deep and today was just our day."

Punahou played without a pair of centers in senior Akahi Troske and junior Jack-Eli Tufono. Both were nursing injuries and Matsuda opted with the Interscholastic League of Honolulu opener a week from Wednesday.

In their absence, a trio of freshman — Maninoa Tufono, Duke Clemens and Falcon Kaumatule — held down the paint.

"At this tournament we usually play to win, but we keep with our philosophy and our philosophy is to play a lot of kids," Matsuda said. "We believe that we can wear teams down with our press and if someone goes down — which we lost two guys yesterday — someone else is prepared to step up. We went with the three freshman tonight at center and they did a good job."

Tufono scored all but two of his 11 points in the second half. Zayne Chong came off the bench and scored all 12 of his points after halftime.

The Cougars shot just 3 of 13 in the opening quarter. They struggled to penetrate against Punahou's man-to-man defense and often settled for low-percentage shots from the perimeter, much to the dismay of Kawazoe.

"We like to start games with balance and we like to start inside-out and our kids came out excited and put up a bunch of 3's and you can't do that against good teams," Kawazoe said.

Mahiko finished with 17 points for Kaiser, which had a four-game win streak snapped and fell to 13-3.

Punahou led at halftime, 22-17.