Burlingame boys' basketball claims title at Bud Bresnahan Blue and Gold Classic

Burlingame (3-0) has as experienced a team as is possible for a high school varsity squad. With five senior starters, the Panthers have fielded the same lineup since 2018-19 when all five were freshman starters. And, frighteningly enough, there are reinforcements on the way.

“I can’t say I’ve seen it,” Burlingame head coach Jeff Dowd said. “I mean, I had five kids on the varsity as freshmen. And those kids are all here right now. And then, when we get everybody healthy, we have nine players who played for a CCS championship coming back.”

Both Burlingame and Jefferson were missing personnel for Saturday’s tournament championship game. The Panthers were missing senior forward Carson Robenalt, and junior guard MJ Dowd. The Grizzlies were without both their starting post players in 6-3 senior center Ruben Camacho and big-bodied 5-11 forward Jaewon Toilolo.

The Panthers capitalized on the disparity in the post, outrebounding the Grizzlies 34-20. Burlingame’s 6-6 junior center Kyle Haslam grabbed a game-high eight boards, including four on the offensive glass.

“[Offensive rebounds] are great because they give us an extra possession,” Haslam said. “Then we can get the lead up. And once we get the lead up, we’ll just keep momentum going. Getting more and more offensive rebounds just helps us a lot.”

That momentum showed up in the scoring swings. The Panthers stormed out to a 23-10 lead early in the second quarter after forward Zaden Martin kicked an assist pass to Tyler Mausehund for a corner 3. Burlingame added on with Martin assisting Lou Martineau for a perimeter 3 to go up 30-12.

But the Panthers got greedy with the 3-point looks. And when they went cold, Jefferson responded with a 14-0 run, sparked by a 3-pointer from sixth-man Drew Takahashi. By the time junior guard Mason Tran capped the 14-point run with a strong dribble-drive layup, the deficit was closed to a two-shot game at 30-26.

“Personally, I think sometimes you can get down early in a game,” Jefferson head coach John Falabella said, “and if you get that mentality, the game can be over because of your thought process. But if you believe you can come back, and believe you can win, that’s really the first step. And then you’ve got to go and get it.”

The Panthers would take a mere 5-point lead into halftime.

“Once we start driving and kicking and getting open, and hitting our open shots, we can catch fire,” Takahashi said. “That’s why we climbed back from 12, we climbed back all the way to 5.”

But in the second half, Burlingame senior Will Uhrich took over. The three-sport standout went for a game-high 17 points, dropping 10 of them in the third quarter. The stocky 6-foot shooting guard drilled two early 3s to push the lead to 41-31.

Martineau and Mausehund added 12 points apiece, while Martin added nine for the Panthers.

“We’re a really balanced team and I think that makes us hard to stop,” Dowd said. “All our guys can get to the rim. All our guys can shoot it.”

Meanwhile, Jefferson (4-1) went ice cold from the field. Despite shooting 8 of 13 from the field in the second quarter, the Grizzlies managed just six field goals over the other three quarters combined. Jeff shot 35% from the field throughout.

“They’re a great defensive team,” Falabella said. “We tried to make some adjustments at halftime. Sometimes they work — yesterday (in a 55-48 win over Carlmont in the semifinals) they worked well — today, not as much. But we were down two starters, sometimes when I called the play, we weren’t always in the right spot.”

The Grizzlies — who opened the season on a four-game winning streak — entered the game surrendering an average of 42.5 points per game. The Panthers were the first team to break the 50-point barrier on them this season.

“We’ve always been playing good defense,” Takahashi said. “Defense is the key to win games for us. … And we swing the ball. We pass the ball a lot. No one’s really selfish on our team. That’s how we get going.”

Tran and senior guard Jaime Choa paced Jefferson with 12 points apiece.

But Burlingame was firing on all cylinders through the second half. In addition to shooting 43.8% in the game, the Panthers played dominant defense down the stretch. Haslam was a menace with two blocked shots in the fourth quarter.

Jeff shot just 1 of 11 from the field over the final eight minutes in this early-season preview of two CCS playoff contenders.

“It was a great experience playing the CCS champion from last year,” Falabella said, “and we hope to be playing them or someone similar in the playoffs this year.”