No. 10 Leilehua escapes with road win over Mililani


Michael Lasquero | ScoringLive
January 31, 2020, 6:51am

The Mules break the huddle in the second half against Mililani. Spencer Honda | SL

MILILANI — A primetime matchup to close out the regular season between two unbeaten OIA West teams lived up to the hype.

Leilehua's Jordan Ke-A sank the go-ahead free throw with 10.5 remaining in regulation and Mililani missed two attempts in the paint at the buzzer as the visiting Mules edged their Central Oahu rival, 50-49, before a max-capacity crowd Thursday night.

The victory gave Leilehua (16-5 overall, 10-0 league) the West's top seed in next week's OIA Division I playoffs. Both the Mules and Trojans (14-8, 9-1) will have first round byes in the 12-team tournament.

"It feels great, we knew it was going to be tough like this," said Leilehua coach Chad Townsend. "Our guys and Mililani guys are only going to grow from games like this. We need games like this to toughen you up in the playoffs."

Turnovers ultimately doomed the Trojans, who had six or more in every quarter and had 29 total before the night was over. Ke-A earned his way to the free throw line after outjumping a Mililani player to catch a lob pass while the Trojans were on offense. The Leilehua senior guard took an elbow to the head on the play, but composed himself to knock down the front end of a one-and-one trip to give the Mules the eventual win.

"That was huge. This season Jordan has been up and down, but he's always been one of our guys though since ninth grade," Townsend said of Ke-A.

"He's really picked up the defensive pressure for us this year. Some nights his offense isn't going, like tonight, like I said man, I loved that he stepped up. He made some turnovers, but we always say if you make a turnover, you get it back on defense and that's what he did. He buckled down."

Ke-A wasn't the only Leilehua player providing the defense however. Five players recorded steals for Leilehua, with Landyn Jumawan garnering five of the Mules' 14 total steals.

It's what also helped the Mules take a sizable lead midway through the fourth quarter.

After Mililani's Jayden Kipapa knocked down a triple to cut Leilehua's lead down to 40-39 with 7:33 remaining, two straight baskets by Davon Newman and Jumawan prompted a Mililani timeout with 5:27 on the clock.

Back-to-back steals by Jumawan after the Mililani timeout prompted the Trojans to call another as Davon Newman (game-high 14 points) made it a 48-39 game with 5:03 remaining in regulation.

"Sometimes we just have to dig deep on defense, that's what we hang our hat on. Just good hard defense," said Townsend. "At the end of the day, that's what wins games for us. Offense comes and goes for us, but defense always got to remain."

But the home team would not go down quietly. Jumawan, who was good at picking Mililani's ball handlers fouled out with 4:19 remaining in the fourth quarter as the Trojans started their comeback bid.

Mililani started to flip the script on Leilehua and turned up the defensive pressure as the Mules committed six of their 13 turnovers in the final period of play.

Kanoa Gibson had a steal in the backcourt to cut Leilehua's lead to 48-42 with 4:11 left that prompted a timeout. He also scored after another Leilehua turnover to make it a 48-46 game with 2:30 showing on the clock.

Ethan Rudometkin split a pair at the line to cut the lead to one and Koby Sison knocked down two free throws with 1:42 remaining to give Mililani its first lead, 49-48, since the opening quarter.

Leilehua's Aviel Palmer, who finished with eight points and seven rebounds, finally broke the scoring drought when he got one free throw to fall with 48.2 seconds left in the game. Neither team would score until Ke-A's free throw broke the 49-all stalemate.

"Mililani locked up man," said Townsend. "I haven't seen our guys that shooked up on offense in a while. They really locked up in the end right there on defense. We're just lucky to get away with this."

The Trojans drew up a play for Rudometkin with 4.9 seconds remaining, but his dribble drive and jumper in the paint was off target and Gibson's putback attempt was highly contested as the Mules held on for the win.

"Ethan had a good look. Fifty percent of the time that goes down for Ethan. We're just lucky to get this win," said Townsend.

Gibson had 13 points to lead the Trojans in the loss. Sison followed with 11 points and Trey Lieb added 10 to round out the Mililani players in double figures.


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