A vocal crowd of about 250 at Farrington's Richard Kitamura Fieldhouse watched the Tigers improve to 7-2 in the OIA Eastern Division, one game behind first-place Kalaheo (8-1) in the White Conference standings. The Govs fell to 5-4.

"We needed this win," said McKinley coach Bob Morikuni, who got 19 points from Alex Ironside and 17 from AJ Ortaleza. "We weren't feeling too good after losing to Moanalua the game before."

The Tigers jumped out to a 12-6 lead after Ortaleza's 3-pointer with 3:33 remaining in the first period before Mikey Kleman's fast break slam dunk ignited an 8-2 run by Farrington that closed it to 14-12 by the end of the quarter.

Shane Cabato-Machado later sank two free throws to start the Governors on an 11-0 run capped by Tyler Liana's putback to put them up, 25-18, with 3:48 left in the half. But after a timeout, Kui Williams made two free throws to begin a 12-3 run for McKinley that pushed the Tigers back ahead, 30-28, at the break.

"We got some strong play off the bench," Morikuni said. "Will Rollman came in and gave us a spark, and Jace Bolosan was real active. That gave us some momentum."

The momentum carried over into the second half, as Justly Laquihon bookended a 12-1 run with a 3-pointer and a steal and layup that stretched the lead to 42-29 with 1:13 remaining in the third period.

Wilhelm Rivera then opened the fourth quarter with two free throws that made it 45-31, but Jeffrey Madarang hit a baseline jumper with 6:34 left to spark an 11-0 run that closed it to 47-44 after his 3-pointer with 4:41 remaining.

But that was as close as Farrington would get as Ironside scored on a layup a minute later to start a a 10-2 run capped by Ortaleza's free throw that sealed the victory with 28 seconds left.

"We were chasing too many points against a good team," Govs coach Allan Silva said. "Too many turnovers, again. We gotta go back to the drawing board."

Kleman led Farrington with 19 points and Madarang added 13 points.