MILILANI -- Imani Wimbush scored a game-high 20 points to lead Radford to its first Oahu Interscholastic Association championship in girls' basketball with a 55-39 win over Kalani Thursday night.

A crowd of about 300 fans at Mililani High School saw the Rams (14-0) take a big lead early, struggle in the second and third quarters, before pulling away from the pesky Falcons (12-4) in the fourth quarter. Radford scored the final 12 points of the game and made 10-of-14 free throws in the final two minutes and 30 seconds.

"It feels great to win a title for Radford," said Wimbush, a 6-foot, junior center. "We started well, but we let them get back in the game and finally settled down at the end."

Wimbush dominated inside the paint, scoring -- or drawing a foul -- nearly at will against the much-shorter Kalani bigs. She scored 11 points in the second half, including seven in the fourth quarter.

"She played a tough game," Radford coach Tani Almont-Done said of Wimbush. "She had some foul trouble, but she was still grabbing boards and her teammates know when to feed her. She was a key component to our success."

The Rams used a 11-0 first-quarter run that began with consecutive 3-pointers by Kelsey Bush to take a 17-3 lead to start the second quarter. Both teams struggled offensively in the second quarter and Kalani cut the Radford lead to 23-10 at halftime.

But, the third quarter belonged to the Falcons. Alex Rogers scored eight points in the period and Taylor Murai six as Kalani outscored the opposition, 22-10, in the third quarter, which it closed on a 6-0 run. It was aided by eight Radford turnovers. Murai's steal and layup with 12 seconds left in the quarter cut the Rams' lead to 33-32.

"I told them at the start of the fourth quarter that 'It's a new game, it's zero-zero now and we need to enter this fourth quarter like we did the first," Almont-Done said. "We needed to settle down, refocus and just erase what happened to us in the third quarter."

Almont-Done's team responded with a 9-0 run that included a three-point play by Wimbush to stretch their lead to 42-32 midway through the final quarter. Kalani answered by scoring seven of the next eight points to pull within four at 43-39, but got no closer. Wimbush made the second of two free throws and Jemory Castro made a putback to start Radford's game-ending 12-0 run. Bash made six of eight from the charity stripe down the setch. She finished with 12 points.

Corie Kuia led Kalani with 11 points.

"We got close at one point, but hit a lull and just couldn't make any shots," Falcons' coach Henry Aylward said. "There were a lot of second-chance points we left out there, too, but you've got to give Radford credit, they played well tonight."

It was the third time this season that the Rams got the better of the Falcons. Radford cruised to a 51-35 regular-season win on Dec. 28 and held them off in a 58-53 win last week in a third-round OIA tournament game. Both teams have already qualified for the Hawaiian Airlines/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division II Girls Basketball State Championships next week.

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