Orange Lutheran cruises past Kaiser, 71-34

Orange Lutheran's Rogers Printup puts up a shot between a pair of Kaiser defenders. Greg Yamamoto | SL

Led by a balanced offensive attack and a suffocating defense, Orange Lutheran handily defeated Kaiser, 71-34, in an opening-round game of the Iolani Prep Classic Wednesday afternoon.

Rogers Printup scored all of his team-high 10 points in the first half, and was the lone player to score in double figures for the Lancers, who hail from Orange, Calif. and improved to 5-1. They will play in a 3:30 p.m. quarterfinal Thursday against Miller Grove (Ga.).

"Tonight in particular everybody kind of chipped in and we got some great shots, the guys played to get everybody as good a shot as we could and we had great balance," Orange Lutheran coach Chris Nordstrom said.

The Lancers broke open an early 2-2 tie with a 32-2 run, capped by CJ Hankins' 3-pointer from the left wing, to take a commanding lead by midway through the second quarter. They hit five of their eight 3-pointers in the first half and held a 43-9 advantage at halftime.

"We've been making a big deal about getting off to good starts, especially defensively, and giving up four (points) in the first quarter is nice," Nordstrom said.

Orange Lutheran outscored Kaiser 26 to 5 in the second quarter and 20 to 8 in the third quarter and led, 63-17, to start the fourth.

Nordstrom was able to empty his bench, with 13 of 14 Lancers scoring at least two points, but he said the key was creating defensive pressure against the smaller Cougars.

"That's it for us; for us we have to guard. If we can play defense — because there's going to be nights when shots don't fall — but you can always guard," Nordstrom said. "That's always easy, so that's our thing, we want to get out and guard and hopefully we can go against more teams with that attitude."

Kaiser, which went scoreless for more than 11 minutes during the first half, showed signs of life in the final quarter, when it outscored Orange Lutheran's second- and third-stringers, 17 to 8.

"The first half our guys were not scared, but this was the first time they ever saw competition like this and so we made some adjustments in the second half and all we wanted to do was take care of the little things — boxing out, coming to meet passes and basically fighting and playing with heart — and I think throughout the fourth quarter, when guys started getting comfortable, we were able to take care of those little things," Cougars' coach Branden Kawazoe said.

Kawazoe agreed that the Lancers' hard-nosed man-to-man defense was a problem for his squad, which won the Oahu Interscholastic Association's Division II crown last year.

"The physicality of the game, for our guys, this is something that they've never seen," Kawazoe said. "Guys are big, fast, athletic and gaps close quickly, passing lanes shut down and that took us out of everything we wanted to do, so that was a struggle for us but I think we adjusted well in the end of the third (quarter) and throughout the fourth quarter, but they definitely exposed a lot of our weaknesses and gave us a few things that we need to work on."

Chance Kalaugher scored 12 points and grabbed 10 rebounds — both game-high marks — to lead the Cougars (6-2), who will play Fuxin New Star (China) in a 9:30 a.m. consolation game Thursday.

"This is going to help tremendously because this is not something that you can rep in practice, so as we get ready to get into league play, dealing with this kind of pressure on the offensive end — dealing with defenses like that — it's going to be huge and beneficial," Kawazoe said.

Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].