Iolani's Hugh Hogland slams down two of his nine points against Leilehua. Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Wed, Feb 25, 2015 @ McKinley

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Leilehua

36

Iolani

37

Final	1	2	3	4
Leilehua (11-2, 18-11)	12	7	9	8	36
Iolani (8-4, 18-8)	9	7	8	13	37

• Points
• Rebounds
• Assists

R. Mann 11 pts  1 3pm  2/2 FTs

K. Kauhi 8 pts  0/0 FTs

R. Mann 8 tot  4 off  4 def

D. Tibayan 5 tot  2 off  3 def

E. Yamada 3 ast

J. Gouty 3 ast

Iolani isn't quite ready to give up its title just yet.

Robby Mann scored 11 points and grabbed eight rebounds — both game-high marks — and Erik Yamada added 10 points to lead defending state champion Iolani to a thrilling 37-36 win over Leilehua Wednesday night.

A crowd of about 500 fans at McKinley's Student Council Gymnasium witnessed the fourth-ranked Raiders complete the comeback by outscoring the seventh-ranked Mules, 13 to 8, in the fourth quarter, after trailing by as many as nine points late in the third.

"In a tournament with teams like these, it really is survive and advance," Iolani coach Dean Shimamoto said.

The Raiders, who finished second in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, improved to 9-4 with the win, which puts them into Thursday's quarterfinal round of the New City Nissan/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division I Boys Basketball State Championships, where they will play third-seeded and sixth-ranked Lahainaluna at 7 p.m. at McKinley.

The Mules, who finished fourth in the Oahu Interscholastic Association tournament, came out on fire offensively to start the game, scoring on their first five possessions to take an early 10-5 lead. They stretched it to a 16-9 advantage on a Liam Fitzgerald 3-pointer from the left wing early in the second quarter. However, the Raiders closed out the first half on a 7-2 run to cut the deficit to 19-16 at halftime.

"At halftime I just wanted them to take it one stop at a time, one basket at a time," Shimamoto said of his locker room speech. "To keep doing what we're doing, don't panic and to just keep coming."

Yamada, a senior guard, scored eight points after halftime, including a pair of 3-pointers in the third quarter.

"We just needed to settle down," Yamada said. "Coach told us we were being too aggressive at times and sometimes being too passive and we need to find that middle ground between attacking and shooting the ball."

Leilehua employed a 3-2 zone for much of the game that largely kept the Raiders out of the paint.

"This Leilehua team runs a flawless zone and it's really hard to crack," Iolani sophomore forward Hugh Hogland said. "It took us a couple quarters to figure them out, but we just executed like we had to, played as a team and came back with free throws and hard work."

Fitzgerald hit a banker with 2:30 left in the third quarter to give his team a 28-19 lead, however, Yamada answered with his trey from straight away on Iolani's next possession.

Leilehua went on to turn it over on its next three possessions, the last of which came off a pure hustle play by several Raiders. Pikai Winchester batted a pass attempt in the paint, which was miraculously saved by Bryson Hamada before going out of bounds. The ball eventually found the hands of Hogland on the other end of the foul, who threw down a dunk to cut Leilehua's lead to 28-24 after three quarters.

"We tried to push the tempo up a little bit, so we got into some trapping situations, we got some stops and were able to come down and attack the basket and Hugh was on the fortunate side of some good finishes," Shimamoto said.

Hogland picked up in the final quarter where he left off in the third, pulling his team within a bucket on a high banker. After a Nicholas Duran basket for Leilehua, Hogland had another dunk off the assist from Mann and drew the foul in the process. He completed the three-point play to make it a one-point game.

"A dunk is a huge momentum changer and I thought maybe a dunk could change this game around and it took two dunks actually," Hogland said. "I just give credit to my team for giving me those passes, because those dunks wouldn't have existed without those passes."

A Joseph Gouty drive and finish at the hoop made the score 31-29, in favor of the Mules, but the Raiders answered with a 6-0 run to take the lead for good on Yamada's free throws with 1:54 remaining.

"It started with our starts on defense," Yamada said. "When we picked up the defensive stops, we were able to get out in transition and beat their zone down and that's how we were able to get more points."

Leilehua had a chance to tie it in the final seconds trailing 37-34, but Gouty drove the lane for a layup with about two seconds remaining and Iolani ran out the clock to hang on.

Gouty, the Mules' leading scorer, was held to seven points on 2-of-8 shooting from the field. He was limited to just one point through the first three quarters.

"I think it was team defense," Shimamoto said. "Sometimes he got by Bryson (Hamada) and our guys were there to be big on the back side. Bryson did a great job throughout the game and really trying to deny him the ball down the stretch, so it was another incredible defensive effort by Bryson, but at the end of the day it was a great team effort."

Anterrio Gainwell and Koa Kauhi led the way with eight points apiece.

Iolani took all nine of its free-throw attempts in the fourth quarter, making seven of them. It out rebounded Leilehua by a margin of 27 to 17.

"The main thing was just believing in ourselves," Yamada said. "We knew coming in that Leilehua was going to be a tough game, because we played them in the preseason and that was a close game then and we knew it was going to be a battle tonight, so credit them, they came out really hard."

The Mules fell to 11-3 and will face Kamehameha-Hawaii in a 3 p.m. consolation game Thursday at McKinley.

Leilehua is 19-16 all-time in state-tournament games, including 4-3 in the first round, while Iolani improved to 55-18 all-time and 7-1 in the first round.