ILH Girls Basketball
Lin, Eagles too much for Royals


Kalani Takase | ScoringLive
January 19, 2022, 11:53pm

  

Wed, Jan 19, 2022 @ Hanalani

Hawaii Baptist

42

Hanalani

37

Final 1 2 3 4  
Hawaii Baptist (9-4, 14-7) 18 1041042
Hanalani (9-4, 12-5) 12 10 4 1137
Maria Ralar 14 pts  2 3pm  4/5 FTs
Joey Lin 14 pts  0/0 FTs


MILILANI — Joey Lin scored six of her team-high 14 points in the first quarter to help Hawaii Baptist to a 42-37 road win over Hanalani in an Interscholastic League of Honolulu Division II girls basketball game Wednesday night. 

The Eagles (4-0) never trailed and led by as many as 11 points to tighten their grip on first place, while the Royals (2-2) dropped their second game in as many days. 

Lin, a 5-foot-9 junior forward, had eight points by halftime. She scored in every quarter and grabbed a handful of offensive rebounds, several that she putback for second-chance points. 

"She's just gotta slow down and kind of survey the situation because she just kind of plays a little bit out of control at times, but you know, that was kind of a typical game for her because she knows she can go for it," HBA coach Robin Yamaguchi said of Lin, who is averaging 11.3 points per game in league play. 

The Eagles went on an early offensive surge with a 14-5 run that was sparked by Emi Wada's straightaway 3-pointer that gave her team a 7-2 lead with five minutes and 32 seconds left in the first quarter. 

After a Kaitlyn Maruya triple from the left corner, Lin found Wada for a bucket inside before Eliana Kiemp converted a three-point play to pull Hanalani within 12-5 at the 4:04 mark of the opening period. 

Lin's 6-foot jumper with 2:32 left in the first made it an 18-7 lead for HBA and capped the visitors' early run. 

The Eagles' cushion remained at 11 points following Careah Baitlon's 3-pointer that stretched it back to a 23-12 lead with 5:32 left in the first half. 

However, Hanalani answered with a run of its own. Relyee Matsuda's putback made it 23-16 with 3:12 left. About a minute later, Maria Ralar splashed a triple from the right wing. On HBA's ensuing possession, Hanalani's 2-3 zone forced a turnover in the form of a Ralar steal, which she recycled into a breakaway layup to cut it to 23-22 with 1:39 remaining in the second quarter. 

The Eagles were able to recoup a few points with a 5-0 run to finish out the first half on a Maruya 3-pointer and buzzer-beating layup by Brianne Pascua to take a 28-22 lead into the break. 

"We needed urgency,"Yamaguchi said of the message he tried to convey to his players at halftime. 

It's a familiar message that Yamaguchi has expressed on a few occasions already this year, including during preseason tournaments at Iolani and in southern California last month. 

"When we were on the mainland, (we played with) urgency, we looked good," Yamaguchi said. "Even in the Iolani Classic; we play good in the fourth quarter when we kinda gotta, (but) we gotta pick up the urgency right away."

After a low-scoring third quarter, HBA took a 32-26 lead into the final stanza.

The Eagles opened the fourth quarter with a 6-2 run that was capped by a Pascua layup to give her team a 38-28 lead with 5:20 left in the game 

The Royals cut it to a one-score game after a Ralar 3-pointer with 3:20 remaining pulled them to within 38-35. It would be the closest they got the rest of the way, however. 

Lin scored on another bucket in the paint after a backdoor cut to make it a 40-35 advantage for HBA with just under three minutes to play. 

Kiemp made a pair of free throws with 26.2 seconds left that again made it a one-possession contest at 40-37, but Baitlon drew a foul with 12.2 seconds on the clock and drained both ends of a one-and-one free-throw situation to seal the win for the Eagles. 

Baitlon finished with seven points, Maruya and Pascua had six each and Wada added five. 

Ralar led Hanalani with 14 points. Kiemp tallied eight, while Chera-Lei Hiers and Skylar Yagin chipped in with four apiece. 

"They're tough," Yamaguchi said of the Royals. "They're real scrappy and so we had a hard time separating from them, but we just gotta regroup — because we gotta play them again."

Hanalani was coming off of a 49-46 loss in overtime at Mid-Pacific Tuesday night — not even 24 hours before tipoff of Wednesday's game against HBA. 

The Royals shot 10 of 14 from the free-throw line, while the Eagles were 4 of 7 from the charity stripe. 

The teams will play one another once more this season, when Hanalani visits HBA on Jan. 27. 

The Royals will look to snap their two-game losing streak Friday, when they host Sacred Hearts (3-1) at 5 p.m. 

The Eagles will try to avoid their first loss when they host Mid-Pacific (3-1) Saturday at 3 p.m. at Dan Liu Gymnasium. 


Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].




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