Jaymason Nunuha scored 20 points and Noa Purcell added 18 as unranked Saint Louis stunned No. 4 Maryknoll 63-57 on Wednesday night at Clarence T.C. Ching Gymnasium.
The game had a number of wild, entertaining run-and-gun flurries, but Trey Taba’s wing 3 with 1:44 left gave Saint Louis the lead for good at 58-57.
From that point, the Spartans seemed to run out of gas, missing three layups in a row.
Nunuha added two free throws with 31.8 seconds to go for a 60-57 lead, and after a missed 3 by Maryknoll, Keawe Silva, a freshman guard, sank two more foul shots for a five-point lead with 9.9 seconds left to seal the victory.
“They did a good job on driving. We couldn’t stop them,” Maryknoll coach Kelly Grant said. “Our whole motto is being able to make stops. Against Punahou (on Jan. 11) and today, we had letdowns defensively.”
Saint Louis, which was 1-9 in ILH regular-season play, advanced to the semifinal round of the league’s playoff tournament and will meet regular-season winner ‘Iolani. Maryknoll’s season is done.
It took the endurance of Nunuha, a 6-foot senior guard who grabbed 11 rebounds, and a second-half surge by the Crusaders.
“Honestly, we all talked as a team and our coaches showed us how to execute without Chris (Sykes),” Nunuha said.
They limited the Spartans to 6-for-24 (25 percent) shooting from 3-point range.
It took some stepping up by the Crusaders, who learned before the game that starting forward Chris Sykes was suspended for one game due to a school rule. Sykes was whistled for a technical foul against Mid-Pacific in the regular-season finale. Because the official claimed Sykes said a cuss word to him, that violated a school rule, Crusaders coach Allan Silva said.
“But he didn’t say it toward the official,” Silva noted.
Maryknoll had finished the regular season in a first-place tie with ‘Iolani and Punahou at 8-2. In a tiebreaker game, the Spartans saw a 10-point lead melt away as ‘Iolani won 43-42. ‘Iolani lost to Punahou the next day, and Punahou took the regular-season title and automatic state-tournament berth.
As the third seed in the playoff tourney, the Spartans were favored against a Saint Louis team they had beaten 54-49 and 61-50 during the regular season.
Instead, the visiting Crusaders turned the tables. Trailing 40-31 at the half, Silva unveiled a 1-2-2 zone with Nunuha on top.
“We’ve been saving it for this game,” Silva said.
That spurred a 16-6 run as Nunuha scored six points and Noah Browne added five. The constant dribble drives by Nunuha, Browne, Jalen Smith and Purcell took a toll. Taba’s dish to Nunuha on a Maryknoll turnover gave Saint Louis a 47-46 lead with 1:50 left in the third stanza.
The Spartans got a 10-foot floater by Kaulana Schmidt on the high post to end the quarter. Maryknoll led 48-47 after three quarters, but surprisingly didn’t continue to attack that gap in the paint often the rest of the night.
“We just didn’t pass it there enough,” Grant said.
The Spartans fell behind 50-48 before sophomore Makoto Kamata connected on back-to-back corner 3-pointers to give Maryknoll a 51-50 lead with 6:08 remaining. However, the normally accurate Spartans struggled to hit from the arc, shooting 2-for-15 there in the second half.
Purcell, a burly 5-10 guard who is an All-State linebacker on the football team, drove for two tough buckets in traffic to tie the game at 54.
With 3:10 left and the game tied at 55, freshman Niko Robben scored on a putback to give Maryknoll the lead. The Spartans turned the ball over moments later, however, and Taba came through with his second bucket of the game.
