Jared Lum lays up a late shot against Kahuku in the Punahou Invitational. Tyler Guieb | SL

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122914_TKG_3570.jpg - Tyler Guieb | SL

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Top-ranked Punahou's big first half propelled the Buffanblu past No. 6 Kahuku, 62-48 in the semifinals of Punahou Invitational at Hemmeter Fieldhouse on Monday night. The Buffanblu advance to play Kalaheo for the Invitational title on Tuesday night while the Red Raiders will face Oahu Interscholastic Association Red East rival Farrington for third place.

"Tomorrow is a huge test, Kalaheo right now is playing great and they are playing well as a team and they are making shots," said Punahou coach Darren Matsuda.

"Kalaheo is playing really great right now and we want to come out the same way we came tonight and hopefully things will fall our way, we'll see," said Dayson Watanabe.

Punahou sank 5 of 6 3-pointers in the first quarter and shot 7 of 10 from the arc in the first half. They shot 8-for-16 (50 percent) for the game. Justin "JB" Kam made three 3-pointers to lead Punahou with 11 points. Akahi Troske chipped in 10 tough points in the paint, and Dayson Watanabe hit two 3's and dished out four assists.

"I'm glad our 3-pointers were falling for us tonight and benefitted us," said Watanabe.

"We're a good shooting team, especially when we get our feet set and we got open shots when we moved the ball and play together, I thought our kids did a good job with that," said Matsuda.

The Buffanblu got off to a quick start and raced out to a 10-2 lead after Kam's drive and the Red Raiders called a timeout. Punahou went on a 8-2 run after Jordan Tanuvasa's 3-pointer, forcing Kahuku to call another timeout. The Buffanblu led, 23-8 after the first quarter.

"Those two make good decisions tonight, that was the key. Things flow from those two and JB, our team will flow from the decisions they make and they did a good job getting everyone involved, pushing the ball and taking good shots," said Matsuda, on his guards, Kam, Tanuvasa and Watanabe.

"Tonight we wanted to feed off each other and we wanted to push the ball and found each other in the open court to get baskets. They had big guys and we wanted to beat them with our quickness and come out and show our speed out there," said Watanabe.

Punahou turned up the pressure and held the Red Raiders to 4 points in the second quarter. Samuta Avea hit a 3-pointer from the right wing a little over the 2:30 mark and went 1 of 2 from the free throw line to score all of Kahuku's quarter points. Avea scored 15 points for the game and shot 2 of 4 from the 3-point line.

"We pride ourselves on our defense fueling our offense and we played good defense and on offense we got to move the ball to find the open man. We are working on our defense and we aren't as big as other teams and we had to move our feet and help each other. Team defense is what it's about and we're not going to be able to do it individually, but as a team we can be a good defensive team," said Matsuda.

Punahou led 37-12 at halftime.

The Buffanblu pushed the lead to over 30 points after Watanabe hit a 3-pointer putting the game out of reach as Punahou's reserves checked in with a little over 5 minutes in the fourth. However, Kahuku came back to get things going on an 8-0 run. The Red Raiders showed how dangerous they can be when they come together and outscored the Buffanblu, 29 to 18 in the quarter. Denhym Brooke scored 13 of his 15 points in the fourth.

"These guys are super athletic, as you can see and we had to beat them by playing as a team. They're probably one of the more athletic teams in the state. They are physical and big and it's tough because it presents matchup issues," said Matsuda, on Kahuku.