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The Maui News 2021-22 MIL Boys Basketball All-Stars

Triplett, Yarbrough garner Player of the Year honors

By Robert Collias 7 min read

Drew Triplett and Hudson Yarbrough are about as different on the basketball court as any two high school players can be, other than one key trait in common.

They are both winners at the highest level in the Maui Interscholastic League, Yarbrough for Baldwin High School, Triplett for Maui Prep.

Yarbrough, a 6-foot-7 senior forward who is headed to prep school in Seattle after graduation, is The Maui News MIL Division I Player of the Year after emerging from a crowded field that included teammate Quintan Akaka and Kamehameha Maui's Kale Spencer.

Yarbrough was a key cog in the Bears' run to the semifinals of the Heide & Cook/HHSAA D-I state tournament.

"I was super excited, I worked really hard for that, so that was pretty exciting," Yarbrough said of hearing about the award via phone earlier this month from Whistler, British Columbia, where he was on a family snowboarding trip.

Yarbrough knows he won a close race for the award with Akaka, who missed five of 11 MIL games due to COVID-19 protocols, and Spencer, who led the Warriors to the state tournament as well.

"They are both great players," Yarbrough said. "My teammate Q, he's a great player, obviously him getting votes isn't a surprise -- he's one of the best players in the state. And Kale, too, Kale's a great player."

Triplett, a 6-1 do-everything guard, is the unanimous choice as The Maui News MIL Division II Player of the Year for the state champion Na Pueo -- he also won the award in 2020.

The MIL All-Star teams are determined by voting among the league's coaches in their respective divisions.

Triplett, who scored 53 points in a game against Molokai as a sophomore and 51 in a preseason game against Saint Louis 2 in December, averaged 24.3 points, 7.5 rebounds, 6.5 assists and 4.4 steals in statistics compiled by MPA. He was perhaps at his best when he dished out 16 assists, a state tournament single-game record, in a 65-35 win over Kaimuki in the state championship game.

Triplett is joined on the MIL D-II first team by teammates Jimmy Falk and Dylan Falk, and Seabury Hall's James Judge and Kobe Garcia.

"It's definitely cool, it's actually a really awesome experience to be able to be named player of the year and have my game recognized not only by the coaches on my team, but also the coaches throughout the league," Triplett said. "Like you said, it was unanimous so it makes me feel good that all of the coaches throughout noticed my abilities on the court.

"Also, it wouldn't have been without the guys on my team because a lot of my success came from their abilities to make plays well, too. So, it's definitely not just an award for me, it's an award that I'd say the whole team is deserving of and the whole team helped play a part in for sure."

To lead the 81-student school in Napili to its first team state crown of any kind is something Triplett will never forget.

The only two other boys basketball state titles in MIL history came in the now-defunct A Division tournament -- Lahainaluna won that crown in 1982 and St. Anthony won it in 1977.

"It's still honestly a little surreal," said Triplett, who is still evaluating his college basketball decision. "Especially after we got back to Maui and all the attention we received and all of the celebratory things that we were a part of, the school community supporting us, that for our team was a lot bigger than just basketball and just this season.

"It was something that was really important for the school, really important for the community and definitely Maui as a whole. Obviously the first one in 40 years, it's been a great opportunity and experience."

MPA co-head coaches Zach Bailey and Cheyne De La Garza are the MIL D-II coaches of the year.

Yarbrough is joined on the D-I first team by Akaka, Spencer, Baldwin's Avery Pauole and Lahainaluna's Noah Flores Alexander.

While the year was challenging while dealing with COVID issues that limited the regular season to nine games, Yarbrough had a blast with his Bears team.

"Man, that was a really fun season," he said. "Obviously some parts were rough, we had to grind through it with COVID and injuries throughout most of the season -- I think we only played one game with our whole team. It was pretty rough, but we all stuck together and grinned it out at the end."

Yarbrough will travel a path to college basketball that few from the MIL ever do -- he will attended Elite Sports Academy in Seattle for a post-graduate year. He will play for NBA player Zach Levine's AAU team, Team Levine, on the Adidas tournament circuit beginning in April.

Coach Dominique Brooks reached out to Yarbrough, who traveled to Seattle recently and made the cut for the prep school year and Team Levine for the spring and summer. The opportunities all came up quickly, all occurring in the last month.

Now, he is able to offer advice to his younger brother Kolt Yarbrough, a 6-1 freshman who is also a member of the Bears basketball team.

"I tell him every day: 'You just have to outwork everyone else -- the only way you get to where you want to be is to work hard,' " Hudson Yarbrough said. "That's all he needs to do because he has all the potential in the world to become a great basketball player."

Hudson Yarbrough, who turns 18 in April, also went out of his way to make sure that he expressed his faith.

"I give all my glory to God," he said.

Baldwin coach Cody Tesoro, who split his POY vote between Yarbrough and Akaka, is the choice of his peers as MIL D-I Coach of the Year.

"It was a lot of fun," Tesoro said. "The thing that I enjoyed the most with this group is -- I talked to media outlets on Oahu when we were there -- one thing that I was really most proud of was no matter what was going on they were able to remain focused on the task at hand.

"The adversity we battled with having one day with our whole team there at practice, they just came to work, regardless of the situation, regardless of who was out. The maturity level of this group was just amazing."

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.

Division I Second Team

Po'okela Aiu, Kamehameha Maui, Forward, Junior

Kanaau Castro, Lahainaluna, Guard, Junior

Kobe Gonzales, Baldwin, Guard, Senior

Keanu Kupau, King Kekaulike, Guard, Senior

Dylan Schnitzer, Kamehameha Maui, Forward, Sophomore

Division II Second Team

Levi Basurto, Maui Prep, Forward, Senior

Jordan Belista, Lanai, Guard, Senior

Renzy Manuel, Lanai, Guard, Senior

Allen Adams, Lanai, Forward, Senior

Irie Mizner, Hana, Forward, Junior

Honorable Mention

DIVISION I--Kamehameha Maui: Brevin Carillo; King Kekaulike: Colton Baldwin, Kyle Davies; Lahainaluna: Kade Cunningham; Maui High: Trajan Cantere, Jermaine Baguyo, Fidel Ortiz, Justin Tolentino.

DIVISION II--Haleakala Waldorf: Adrian Wertheim, Cyrus Laury-Schaeffer; Hana: Stratton McClure; Lanai: Sam Dimaya III; Maui Prep: Koenig Biegel; Molokai: Jericho Adolpho, Owen Svetin; Seabury Hall: Luca Connor, Leon McKuin.

Starting at /week.