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Jordan Tanuvasa’s bright orange socks made him easy to spot on the floor.
The Punahou point guard stood out even more prominently for his stroke from long range on Saturday.
Tanuvasa drained five 3-pointers on his way to scoring a game-high 25 points to lead No. 1 Punahou to a 55-46 win over McKinley in the Pete Smith Classic championship game at Kalaheo.
"We have different guys who can score. He’s one of those guys," Punahou coach Darren Matsuda said. "Some of the other guys were off a little bit and he stepped up, he came out aggressive.
"Him and Dayson (Watanabe), have a tough job. They’re the point guards. They can also score for us and both of them do a good job of finding a happy medium."
Tanuvasa scored 13 points in the first half and nailed his third 3-pointer just before the buzzer to give Punahou a 31-26 lead going into the locker room.
He opened the third quarter by knocking down another 3-pointer from the top to ignite a 10-2 run and Punahou led by as many as 15.
McKinley answered with a 10-2 run of its own to start the fourth quarter, closing the gap to 47-42 with 4:16 left in the game. But Tanuvasa’s driving jumper halted the run and the Punahou defense allowed just one more McKinley field goal the rest of the way to hold off the Tigers.
"It’s a balance facilitating the offense, getting my teammates involved, but at the same time getting myself open," Tanuvasa said. "It was teammates getting open and I just found the balance today."
Watanabe finished with nine points and the Buffanblu claimed the tournament title with their fourth win in as many days.
"I think this gives us a lot of confidence," Tanuvasa said. "The past two weeks we were in other tournaments, but this one really gave us a confidence boost."
Jonah Howard helped keep the Tigers within reach for much of the night with 16 points while Macjun Otarra scored eight of his 10 in the second half.
Dan Villejo, who scored 22 points in McKinley’s semifinal win over Kalaheo on Friday, scored just three points in the first half on Saturday but dished out five assists.
At Kalaheo
Consolation bracket
Kamehameha II 72, Anuenue 36
Fleetwood Park (Canada) 51, Castle 34
Punahou II 60, Southern Okanagan (Canada) 33
Consolation championship
Campbell 47, Mililani 41
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