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Michael Lasquero | SLFebruary 20, 2022, 12:15am
Sat, Feb 19, 2022 @ Blaisdell
Dreams became a reality for the Hawaii Baptist girls basketball team Saturday night.
The Eagles caught fire after a dismal opening quarter to win the Heide & Cook state championship with a 41-28 win over Sacred Hearts at the Neal Blaisdell Center arena.
Junior Joey Lin scored a game-high 12 points with nine rebounds to lead HBA to its third state title, the team's first since 2019.
"It feels great. It's really reliving to finally reach my goal after this whole season of working and preparing," said Lin, who was named the tournament's most outstanding player.
It was Lin's third straight game scoring 12 points with at least nine or more rebounds. She did it while battling a midseason achilles' injury in her left ankle that flared up twice against the Lancers in the championship game.
"I think I just fell on it again, like twice," Lin said of her ankle. "It was a struggle, but I just shook off the pain because my ankle was not going to hinder me from reaching my goal of winning a state title."
Fellow junior Careah Baitlon was another important piece in the Eagles' championship win. The 5-foot-2 guard had her best game of the state tournament and scored nine points with two triples and five assists. She also had a hand in every first-half field goal for HBA to help the Eagles take a 16-14 lead at the break.
"Careah is a great player," Lin said of Baitlon. "She's one of my best friends. We've been playing basketball together since seventh grade. She's really aggressive and she's definitely not someone I would want to play against."
Seniors Hayley Taka and Emi Wada rounded out the top scorers for HBA with eight and five points respectively. Taka also added seven rebounds while Wada chipped in with three assists. Both players, along with Baitlon, were selected to the all-tournament team.
The Eagles scored on their first shot attempt from the field on a Lin layup, but they missed their next 11 shots and trailed 5-2 after the first quarter. Lin also went 0-for-4 from the free throw line in the opening period.
"We told ourselves that this is a little set back," Lin said of the Eagles' poor first quarter. "We just had to push through all the mistakes, all the bad passes and just get to the next play."
KalysaMarie Ng put the Lancer ahead by five points early in the second quarter before HBA started to find its groove with back-to-back assists into the paint by Baitlon to cut the deficit to one. A tough baseline runner by Nahenahe Alo pushed the lead back to three, but Wada's 3-point shot from the right wing tied the game at 9-9 with 5:52 remaining in the period.
Lin briefly left the game after Wada's game-tying triple, but came back to cap a 10-0 HBA run with a nice up-and-under move that gave the Eagles a 16-9 lead.
A Ng 3-pointer, her second of the first half, and a euro-step by Dezaray Carter helped the Lancers make it a two-point game heading into halftime.
The third quarter was really when the Eagles started to soar.
Lin converted on four consecutive free throws to start the second half before a Kaitlyn Maruya corner trey forced Sacred Hearts to call a timeout down 23-14 three minutes into the third quarter.
A 3-pointer by Cadee Paulos stopped the bleeding for the Lancers. Lin then had to leave the game after a collision on the following possession. Others stepped up for the Eagles though as HBA closed out the quarter with a 8-0 run to take a 31-17 lead after three quarters of play.
The Lancers were held to just 1-for-13 shooting in the third quarter as they were outscored, 15 to 3.
Sacred Hearts coach Richard Kasuya said that the rigors of playing four games in four straight days in the tournament took a toll on his team.
"We generally play a little quicker than you saw tonight," Kasuya said. "I think our kids quite didn't have the reserve that we needed. We've been going with a pretty short bench through the playoffs. I think that may have caught up to us tonight."
The Lancers, as the fourth-place team from the ILH in the state tournament, also had to play through a league tournament to earn a state berth while the top three teams in the regular season — which included HBA — had more than a week off to rest for the state tournament. Saturday's championship game marked the eighth game in 12 days for the Lancers.
"We had a tough road to get here, but all the credit goes to HBA," said Kasuya. "They came out and they played hard. They played well. That's a really good team and we're honored to be on the same court and they truly deserved to win."
Ng led the Lancers in the loss with 10 points and three steals.
Sacred Hearts was seeking its first-ever state title and was playing in just their second championship game in program history.
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