Menlo takes Lions title

Tournament host Burlingame, which has two players who reach 6-3, showed there is a way to limit the impact of height.

The Panthers stayed in front of the Knights all game long. Burlingame led 17-14 at halftime, but Menlo’s length eventually proved too much for the Panthers as the Knights rallied from a fourth-quarter deficit to pull out a 38-36 victory.

Burlingame led 25-23 going into the fourth quarter and after Sean Richardson made 1 of 2 free throws for a three-point lead, Menlo answered with a 9-0 run to take a 32-29 lead with 3:11 left to play.

Garret Keyhani, who scored eight of his 11 points in the final period, took over in the fourth. After Joe Crisci made a free throw, Keyhani scored on a layup after Cole Kastner grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed free throw and fed Keyhani underneath. The 6-7 sophomore followed with another layup off an inbound play and after Davis Mead drained a pair of free throws, Keyhani used a spin move in the lane for another bucket and a 32-26 lead.

“When we got down six, it felt pretty bleak,” said Burlingame head coach Jeff Dowd.

Things got worse for Burlingame as Menlo pushed its lead to 37-39 with just over a minute left to play. After Lou Martineau, who scored a game-high 14 points, hit his fourth 3-pointer of the night to cut the Menlo lead to 32-29, the Knights came back with five unanswered points — leaving a couple points on the table by missing a couple of free throws.

That left the door open for the Panthers and they nearly walked through. Miles Klapper hit a pair of technical-foul free throws and when he buried a 3-pointer with 51 seconds left, the Panthers were down only three, 37-34.

Mead made 1 of 2 free throws for a 38-34 Menlo advantage, but Klapper was awarded a basket off the drive on a goaltending call to cut the Menlo lead to 38-36 with 17 seconds to play.

When Menlo missed a pair of free throws with 15 seconds left, Burlingame grabbed the rebound. The Panthers worked the ball until finding Martineau in the left corner. His 3-point attempt was long and while Ryan Ballout grabbed the loose ball and tried to get another shot off, Keylani was there to secure the ball and the win for the Knights.

“[This is] why high school basketball is so fun,” said Menlo School head coach Keith Larsen. “If you can win a game and play poorly, it’s an important lesson.”

Kastner, the tournament MVP, posted his third straight double-double for the tournament, finishing with a team-high 12 points and grabbing 15 rebounds — six on the offensive glass.

Burlingame head coach Jeff Dowd was certainly satisfied with his team’s effort. The Panthers did all the little things relatively well to hold off a bigger, taller team: Burlingame boxed out on rebounds to hang with the Knights on boards. Menlo out-rebounded Burlingame just 30-23.

The Panthers were also solid from the free-throw line, hitting 9 of 11 from the stripe.

Faced with having to deal with Menlo’s height on both ends of the floor, the Panthers stayed calm and learned they can be competitive even when forced to change up game strategy on the fly.

“We wanted to push it,” Dowd said. “But [Menlo] did such a good job of getting back (defensively).”

Said Larsen: “One thing we work on every day is transition.”

Instead, Burlingame was forced to milk the shot clock on nearly every possession, which ordinarily would not seem like such a big deal. But when a 6-7 defender is closing out a shot or jumping out on a switch, the window to get a shot off closes really quick.

Taking time off the shot clock wasn’t so much a strategy as a necessity as that what it took to get a shot off or a drive to the basket.

“Everything was a struggle,” Dowd said. “Every (offensive) possession had to be perfect.”

In addition to Martineau’s 14, Klapper finished with 12 points for the Panthers.

Both teams struggled to start the game as they combined for just 10 points in the opening quarter. Keyhani scored on an inside bucket 12 seconds into the game — and Menlo did not score again until Chris Cook hit a pair of free throws with 43 seconds left in the quarter.

Burlingame, meanwhile, went more than five minutes between their two baskets. Klapper knocked down a 3 at the 6:53 mark and the Panthers didn’t score again until Martineau drained a 3 at the 1:39 mark as Burlingame led 6-4 after the opening period.

Menlo scored the first six points of the second quarter, with Kastner scoring twice down low. Burlingame went nearly four minutes without a point, but when Tyler Mausehund connected on a layup at the 4:46 mark, the Panthers only trailed 10-8.

That bucket kick-started a 6-0 Burlingame run, but when Kastner scored at the rim, the game was tied at 12 with 1:38 left in the half.

Richardson made a pair of free throws and a Martineau hit a 3, offset by Kastner’s fourth bucket of the quarter, and Burlingame held a 17-14 lead at halftime.

Menlo came out flying to start the third quarter, scoring the first nine points to turn a three-point deficit into a 23-17 lead with 5:41 left in the quarter.

The Knights, however, didn’t score again the rest of the period. Burlingame, on the other hand, finished on an 8-0 run, as Martineau buried a pair of 3s sandwiched around a drive and layup along the baseline for the 25-23 lead going into the fourth.

“I’m super happy with toughness the my guys showed,” Dowd said.

In other tournament action, Stuart Hall-SF pulled away from Gunn to post a 68-33 win in the third-place game. Half Moon Bay took fifth place with a 54-39 win over Aragon, while Hillsdale tipped off the final day of the tournament with a 72-29 win over Oceana.