If there were do-overs at the HHSAA boys basketball tournament, Honokaa coach Jayme Carvalho surely would have taken one early-on Friday.
University overwhelmed Honokaa at the outset of their semifinal and raced to a 54-39 victory at Kaimuki High in Honolulu to advance to the Division II championship game.
”We gave effort until the end, but we started really slow,” Carvalho said. “We were running in quicksand.”
The problems were two-fold for the BIIF runner-up Dragons (9-6), who routinely placed three of four scorers in double figures during league play. Against the Junior Rainbows (13-3), the ILH runner-up, Honokaa didn’t have any players reach double digits. It trailed 23-9 after the first quarter.
Carvalho said Honokaa didn’t rebound the ball as well as it did in a 40-37 victory against Roosevelt in the quarterfinals, leading to too many second-chance opportunities for University. He also felt and the Dragons didn’t adapt quickly enough to University’s zone defense.
“Defensively, we were overaggressive,” Carvalho said.
Other the end, Honokaa wasn’t aggressive enough.
“(University) was pressing everybody,” Carvalho said. “Everybody I talked to said they pressed.
“They respected us and didn’t press. They played us like teams did in the preseason on Oahu. They came out in a wide zone and we were too tentative against it.”
Kea Callihan and Kelvin Falk each scored eight points for Honokaa and Jonathan Charbonneau added six.
Ryan Hobus (19 points) and Anson Canencia (16) paced University, which seeks its first state title since 1988 against Seabury Hall at 5 p.m. Saturday at Stan Sheriff Center.
Honokaa also gets a chance to play at Stan Sheriff on Saturday, taking on ILH champion St. Francis in the 1 p.m. third-place game.
“You know we’re going to fight and battle hard,” Carvalho said.
In a consolation match at Farrington, BIIF champion St. Joseph lost in overtime to Kalani, 50-48, ending its season 8-8.
Division I
Baldwin 59,
Waiakea 52
Calvin Mattos finished with 18 points and eight rebounds but the BIIF champion Warriors shot a measly 1 of 13 on 3-pointers at Stan Sheriff Center for a two-game exit at states.
Jonovan-Taje Akaka led the Bears (11-6) with 18 points and eight rebounds as the Maui runner-up shot 47.9 percent. Baldwin led 33-27 at halftime.
The Warriors (12-2) forced 23 turnovers but only registered one assist on 36.4 percent shooting and didn’t do themselves any favors with 11-of-19 shooting from the free-throw line.
Noah Ferreira and Kahinu Alapai finished their Waiakea careers with 12 and eight points, respectively.
Combined with league runner-up Konawaena’s two-game exit, the BIIF is 0-8 that past two seasons at states in D-I.