TOP-RANKED PUNAHOU MOVES ON TO FINALS

December 21, 2007

By Bob Hogue
Senior Sports Correspondent

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     When Robbie Toma knocked down a free throw with six seconds left Friday night, he quietly pumped his fist and accepted congratulatory slaps from his Punahou teammates.  That free throw sealed the Buffanblu’s 49-43 semi-final victory over a very tough Wilson High School team from Portland, Oregon and improved Punahou’s pre-season record to 6-0.  The win also put the Buffanblu in Saturday night’s Punahou Tournament championship game against Benson Tech, also of Portland.

    Toma, Kameron Steinhoff, Manti Te’o, and Dalton Hilliard—all football teammates from Punahou’s 2^nd-ranked gridiron squad—scored all the points for the Buffanblu during a tense fourth quarter.

     “This is closest bunch of guys I’ve ever been around,” said Toma, who finished the night with 10 points.  Steinhoff poured in 11 points, while Te’o finished with six points, all coming in the final ten minutes of the game.

     Teo’s offensive explosion came as a surprise, and was ignited by the 6-foot 2-inch junior’s awesome block on Wilson’s 6-foot 7-inch center Darryl Finley, midway through the third quarter.

    “Offense is not my strongpoint,” said the ILH football Defensive Player of the Year (and a member of the Digital Sports Hawaii Dream Team).  “That means I have to step up anyway I can.”

     It was Te’o who stepped up and scored his first points of the game after Wilson rallied from an early nine-point deficit to close within a point at 28-27 late in the third quarter.  Moments later, Wilson’s Mario Hill hit a desperation three-pointer at the third quarter buzzer—three of his game high 17 points—to pull Wilson within two points at 34-32 with eight minutes to go.

     “We needed a team effort.  The guys worked hard as a team out there.  That’s what it’s all about,” said Te’o, talking about the fact that Punahou rotates all of its players with heavy minutes during the pre-season.

     But down the stretch, the Buffanblu turned to a football fearsome foursome of Toma, Te’o, Hilliard, and Steinhoff.  Te’os strong move inside gave Punahou a three-point cushion with just over two minutes left, and his strong effort was followed by a monstrous block by Steinhoff at the other end.

    With a minute and a half left, Steinhoff fed Te’o for another big score inside and the lead was pushed to five points.  After a Wilson jumper, Steinhoff ran down an errant pass and scored on a driving lay-in for a five-point margin again with just under a minute left.

     “I take my leadership role seriously,” the senior captain said.  “I was just hoping my teammates would follow.”

     Steinhoff has been an inspiration to his teammates ever since he recovered from an injury that demanded surgery to his spleen during the recent football season.  The 6-foot 5-inch wide receiver/forward was in the hospital for a week and needed nearly a month and a half to recover from the emergency surgery.

     “It was really scary; a near death experience,” he said.

      But Steinhoff says he’s at 100 percent now and enjoying every minute of Punahou’s unbeaten string to begin this season.  He hopes to lead his teammates to yet another win Saturday night in the tournament title game.