Pretty wins are nice, but Greg Tacon is not one to be picky this time of year.

Led by a 19-point effort by Dexter Williams, the Moanalua boys basketball escaped with a 45-40 win over Radford Wednesday night at the Rams' James Alegre Gymnasium.

With the victory, Na Menehune (8-6) advanced to the third round of the Oahu Interscholastic Association Red Division Tournament while Radford (11-2) suffered just its second loss of the year.

"Radford is a hard team to play against because of their athleticism, but our guys did a good job of protecting the ball as much as possible tonight and we caught fire at the end there," Moanalua coach Greg Tacon said. "We've had such a hard time closing out games, so it was good that we were able to get this one. It wasn't a pretty win, but we'll take it."

Na Menehune, who were coming off a 37-point rout of Pearl City in a first-round game Tuesday, trailed for most of the game and took their first lead since late in the first quarter on a driving basket by Richard Villasenor with four minutes and nine seconds left in the game. That score gave his team a 32-31 lead, which it would not relinquish.

A few minutes later, Williams made the front end of two free throws with 2:16 to play to make it 35-33. He rebounded his own miss on the second free throw and made the putback to make it a two-score game.

The Rams closed to within two after a 3-pointer by T.J. Reid from the right wing made it 40-38 with 38 seconds left, however, Moanalua scored the next five points, including its last three free throws to clinch it.

"I was just thinking, 'Close it out,'" said Williams, who is averaging a team-best 16.1 points per game. "We already beat them once (in preseason), so we knew we could do it, but we lost some close games this season on the free-throw line, so we didn't want to go out like that this time."

Williams, a 6-foot-3, senior forward, scored nine points in the final quarter and finished 13-of-20 from the free-throw line.

"We had to just continue to play our game and not play theirs," Williams said.

The teams played an even first quarter and were tied at 10 entering the second. However, the Rams used a 13-0 run that began late in the first quarter to surge ahead 19-10. Moanalua closed out the second quarter on a 6-0 run to cut it to 24-20 at halftime. Na Menehune made just four first-half field goals, but were good on 11 of 12 from the free-throw line. Moanalua scored just six third-quarter points, but allowed only three and started the fourth quarter behind, 27-26.

Reid led Radford with 12 points and five assists. Nanshon George scored nine of his 11 points in the first half and grabbed 14 rebounds for the Rams.

Guard Keven Amaral chipped in 12 points for Moanalua.

Na Menehune, the East's fourth seed, have won five straight games and visits Kahuku Friday in a winners' bracket game. In their two regular-season meetings against the Red Raiders, Moanalua has lost both times by a combined six points, including a two-point overtime loss on Jan. 15.

Radford, who earned a first-round bye as the Western Division champion, hosts Kalani in an elimination game Friday.


Mililani 48, Kaimuki 45

Kaimuki led 34-19 at halftime, but the Trojans outscored the Bulldogs 29-11 in the final two quarters to pull off the come-from-behind victory, 48-45, advancing to face East top-seed Roosevelt in the Championship Bracket semifinals.

Hassan Richardson scored 21 points, and Alex Bumgarner added 14 more for Mililani.

Kaimuki got 17 points from Mason Kualii-Moe.

---