Baldwin watches, learns, wins

Ask the Baldwin boys basketball team, and PBS has got nothing on OC 16 as far as educational programming.

Baldwin used a tip gleaned from a broadcast of the OIA tournament and opened the Hawaiian Airlines/HHSAA Boys Basketball State Championships with a 57-43 win over Kapolei in Division I at McKinley on Wednesday night.

"We had the opportunity to watch them on TV," Baldwin coach Wayne Gushiken said. "We saw a lot of tendencies we thought we could exploit. They were letting the ball inside a lot on TV, so we thought we could do some screen action and it worked a little bit."

Actually, it worked a lot. Baldwin big man Teva Eldridge led Baldwin with 16 points, half of them in the first half on post-up moves. For all the athletic Hurricanes tried, they couldn’t stop Eldridge down low. The only relief they got was when he missed a pair of free throws down the stretch when the Bears were trying to clinch it.

"The whole game I was getting some chances, but I missed some crucial free throws at the end," Eldridge said. "It just shows me I need to work on them."

Eldridge was 5-for-8 from the line in the final 2 minutes, and 8-for-17 overall. Point guard Kody Takushi scored 11 points and Mathew DeMichele matched him with 11. Christopher Dillard led Kapolei with 17.

Baldwin led from the outset, scoring seven points before Kapolei could get on the board. After allowing the disciplined Bears to run the advantage to 10 points, 16-6, the Hurricanes woke up and went on an 11-2 run to climb within a point with 1:19 left in the second quarter.

After a timeout, the Bears got it back together with a 3-pointer from Jeremiah Badillo and carried that spark to a 27-17 halftime lead on baskets from Ryan Garces and Eldridge, and from Phillip Thomas on a nifty one-handed buzzer-beater off an inbounds play.

Baldwin cruised from there, keeping its double-digit lead throughout the third quarter and weathering a frantic Kapolei press in the fourth that had Takushi looking exhausted. Takushi later said it was the hardest game he has played all season.

"I think we should have came out with that press," Kapolei coach Garry Ellison said. "But you live and learn. The main thing, though, is that Baldwin is a good team, a very disciplined basketball team."

The Hurricanes had it down to seven points, 45-38, with 4:02 left before Baldwin began hitting free throws to seal it.

The Bears, who improved to 3-10 in first-round games in the state tournament, get top-seeded Maryknoll tonight at McKinley. Baldwin nearly beat the Spartans in December, losing 35-32 in Punahou’s tournament just before Christmas.

"We are not a real good ballhandling team, we did just enough to get by," Gushiken said. "Maryknoll is not going to put as much pressure on us as Kapolei did, maybe that will help us. But we are going to have to play a perfect game to beat them."

At McKinley

Baldwin (11-4) 11 16 12 18 — 57

Kapolei (12-2) 4 13 10 16 — 43

BALDWIN—Kody Takushi 11, Jacob Valle 2, Jeremiah Badillo 5, Ryan Garces 11, Philip Thomas 9, Randy Wong 0, Bradley Bowlin 3, Teva Eldridge 16.

KAPOLEI—Elia McKeague 3, Dorien Martos 2, Curtis Tavares 5, Joshua Wills 5, Christopher Dillard 19, Brailand Hearn 0, Zachary Reeves 6, Mason Alfaro 1, Elijah Gipson 2, Michael Kapoi 0.

3-point goals—Baldwin 3 (Takushi, Badillo, Garces). Kapolei 4 (Dillard 2, McKeague, Tavares).