No. 1 Oak Hill tops No. 25 Montverde for Classic title


Oak Hill guard Quinn Cook shows some emotion in the first half against Montverde. Brien Ing | SL
Senior point guard Quinn Cook scored 22 points Tuesday night to lead No. 1-ranked Oak Hill (Mouth of Wilson, Va.) to a 58-44 victory over Montverde (Fla.) in the 27th Annual 'Iolani Prep Classic championship game.

Oak Hill is ranked No. 1 in the nation by ESPN Rise and USA Today; Montverde is No. 25 in USA Today.

"I'm happy, I feel good about how we played," said Oak Hill coach Steve Smith, who now has 802 career victories in his 26th season.

The Warriors won despite the absence of starting shooting guard Keith Hornsby, who suffered a right ankle sprain after scoring a game-high 22 points in Monday's semifinal victory over No. 45 Dr. Phillips (Orlando, Fla.). Hornsby was on crutches Tuesday and is expected to be out of action for at least two weeks.

"That's OK, because we actually have some time off and won't play for a couple weeks anyway," Smith said. "We needed another guard (tonight) and Jordan Adams handled the ball well against some pressure. We needed that, because they were running a lot of guys at Quinn."

Oak Hill's offense took some time to adjust, especially with the Eagles playing tight defense in the early going. The Warriors led, 8-5, after one period and 19-13 at halftime.

But after Montverde closed it to 19-15 to open the third quarter, Cook swished a 3-pointer to open things up a bit and later converted back-to-back layups -- the first one a sweet reverse -- as the lead grew to 39-26.

In the fourth period, Cook drained another 3-pointer and then effectively sealed the victory with a smooth floater in the lane to make it 54-32 with 2:17 remaining.

"Luckily, we played really good defense," Smith said. "I like to play a little quicker on offense, but we're OK in a halfcourt game. We spend half of our practices on defense, and (the Eagles) never got momentum. Fortunately, we did in the second half."

The 6-foot-1, ultra-smooth Cook was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player after a spectacular four-game display of dazzling ball-handling, nifty passing and creative shot-making.

Steve Missi led Montverde with 16 points.


Most Outstanding Player: Ben McLemore, Oak Hill
Most Valuable Player: Quinn Cook, Oak Hill

One Team Award: Mason County
This most prestigious award is presented to the team that best represents the Iolani tradition of "One Team," demonstrating character not show, action not credit, effort not talk, team not self.

ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM

Treg Setty, Mason County
Micah Dunhour, Academy of the Pacific
Micah Christensen, Kamehameha
Shane Larkin, Dr. Phillips
Charles Mitchell, Wheeler
Trevyn Tulonghari, Iolani
Steve Missi, Montverde
Taylor Martin, Lexington Catholic
Mason Kualii-Moe, Kaimuki
Zeqi Wang, Tsinghua
Wesley Armbrust, Moanalua
Jordan Adams, Oakhill
Jabarie Hinds, Mount Vernon
Patricio Garino, Montverde
Scott Schuette, Lexington Catholic